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As you know, our lead specialist Michael recently held an online meeting with Maria Valerievna Butina.

Today, we are sharing the full recording of their conversation with you.
In the video, you will learn about the current situation with TRP 702 and upcoming changes to migration legislation from a State Duma deputy.

Enjoy watching!

Our mission is to make relocation to Russia as smooth as possible for foreign nationals 🤝

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"About my life in Russia" – useful interviews with expats and immigrants.

♟ Botvinnik: The Beginning

♟ At the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, a new star flared up on the Russian chess firmament: Mikhail Botvinnik. Born in 1911, twenty years later than Alekhine, Bogoljubov, and Levenfish, Botvinnik belonged to a new generation of Russian/Soviet chess players. His long life encompassed the entire Soviet period of Russian history. His early childhood still took place in the Russian Empire, and he passed away already in the new Russia, in 1995.

I once had the chance to attend his talk. This was in the early 1980s. He came to our institute and spoke at the seminar about his attempts to create a chess computer which, in Botvinnik’s dreams, would surpass the strongest human chess players. At that time, Botvinnik and his collaborators (with one of whom we played chess together at the Moscow Pioneers Palace) did not succeed. But by the end of the century, as we know, Botvinnik’s dream was realized.

But let us return to the 1920s. Botvinnik’s youth was spent in Leningrad. His first teacher was Abram Model, a strong chess master who instilled in young Misha what later distinguished him from his contemporaries—a systematic approach to chess. Model (and later Botvinnik himself, when he became a coach) taught not to look for a “beautiful move,” but to view the position as a whole. Considering the next move, one should all the time ask oneself:
1. What is the balance of forces?
2. What weaknesses do the sides have?
3. What plans follow from the existing pawn structure?

This positional approach was sharply different from the then-fashionable tactical, combinational style.

Botvinnik’s first major success was a win against Capablanca during the first Moscow International Chess Tournament in 1925, which attracted many of the world’s leading players, including the reigning world champion, Capablanca. Capablanca gave a simultaneous exhibition on 30 boards. He won 18 games, eight ended in draws, and he lost four. One of those victories over the great champion was achieved by the young first-category player Misha Botvinnik. Later, the mature Botvinnik faced Capablanca eight times. Six games ended in draws, Botvinnik lost one, and he won one—the famous game at the AVRO tournament in Rotterdam in 1938, which we will talk about in the next issue of our chess column.

♟ #RussianSport@TCofRus