Putinists Race to Ban Chess

The Russian State Duma deputy Yana Lantratova demands to ban Chess, the musical by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. This story inspired by the chess careers of Viktor Korchnoi and Robert Fischer was successfully staged in Moscow in 2020, but now this putinist claims that the plot "does not give enough respect to the Rusian Federation". She lodged the corresponding deputy inquiry with the Russian Ministry of Culture.

Sergey Karjakin, a strong GM who turned into a dumb propagandist, complained in his blog that Chess.com does not let him play in its tournaments. Yesterday he promised to make a plea to... Roscomnadzor (a Russian government agency that blocks Twitter, Facebook, Instagram... you name it) demanding to block Chess.com in Russia. Scared!

In the morning he made another statement (got sober maybe): now he "pardons" Chess.com and promises to focus on development of his own chess platform. Well, he is likely to play there alone. Maybe he should start with his version of Solo chess.

Meanwhile, the sanctioned Russian companies: SBER, GazProm, SevMash - even the Russian Nuclear Research Institute  - actually do not need Karjakin's site. They can safely play their corporate and team tournaments on Lichess despite the site's promise to "not offer any official support for events held by the Chess Federations of Russia or Belarus".

Aha! Now we get the catch. Lichess' support is not "official" and the competition is not run by the Federation.  The games are played in a series of individual tournaments on Lichess (example) and the team standings are calculated on a Russian site, which makes Lichess "clean".

What's your next step, Lichess? Organize the Russian Army Cup with goods pillaged in Bucha as prizes?

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