A unique Soviet set: the “Kjeldahl” set

I’m ending 2024 and starting 2025 by presenting a fascinating and unique Soviet set that has been on my Etsy wishlist for a while; although given the price, I will continue enjoying this set at a distance.

Although the set shares some features with other sets, I haven’t seen anything quite like this before. It doesn’t seem to be an established pattern, but a one-of-a-kind set. Let’s explore what makes this set so unique.

Why is it still available?

This Soviet set has been for sale by Ukrainian seller Creacollection for a while now. I’m a bit surprised it hasn’t been sold yet. I suppose that given that it’s not an established pattern with a significant history such as its use in USSR tournaments, it’s not a sought-after set, and so it will be purchased based on aesthetics and its uniqueness alone. Given the lack of historicity, I guess people find it harder to justify spending more than $1,300 on it. Had it been a pristine Botvinnik–Flohr I or II set, maybe it would have sold already—though I’ve seen several BFII sets that have been for sale for a while now all the same.

This “Kjeldahl” set as I’m calling it does have a feature somewhat reminiscent of BFII, by the way. More on that later.

Photo by Creacollection—as are all other photos of this set.

Update: The set has been sold! The new owner (Daniel Jones) saw my post and decided to buy it. Congratulations on the wonderful acquisition!

Its age

Creacollection describes the set as coming from the ’40s to ’50s. I have no idea how they established this. To me the set looks too pristine to be that old; the black pieces show no signs of age in terms of wear—although it’s possible they have been restored with a fresh layer of paint—and the white pieces haven’t developed much of a patina as far as I can see.

If you told me this set was produced in the ’70s, I would have said that makes sense—certainly given the many other curious unestablished Soviet sets I’ve seen from this period.

Backstory

This section is a later update, as Daniel Jones asked Creacollection if they had more information about the set.

Apparently the set comes from Kharkiv, and survived the collapse of the USSR and the establishment of independent Ukraine. The former owners of this chess set were forced to sell it due to their difficult financial situation and the destruction of their home due to Russian military operations.

The previous owner stated that he inherited the set from his grandfather, who was fond of playing chess and participated in city competitions during the USSR. The staff of the State Coal Mining and Marketing Trust where he worked gave him the set for his birthday. This does give credence to the claim that the set was produced in the ’40s to ’50s.

The artel is unknown. ChatGPT tells me that the foremost chess-producing artels in Kharkiv during the Soviet Union were Red Combine and MUYD, but this is false on both counts; Red Combine was active in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) during the ’40s and ’50s, while MUYD produced chess sets since 1939 in Khalturin, Russia—not in Kharkiv, Ukraine. It’s a reminder not to trust AI on Soviet chess sets!

By the way, had I known this backstory, I would have called this set Kharkiv; but interestingly I happened on a name starting with ‘K’ either way.

Wood type

The set is described as being made of 'Korelskaya birch'. I assume this means Karelian birch (also called curly birch given its characteristic dark curly grain). In fact, Google translate confirms this; when I translate ‘Karelian birch’ to Russian, it gives me ‘Karel’skaya beroza’ as the translation in Latin.

It’s curious, though, as the white pieces don’t show the typical Karelian birch texture I’ve seen in many other sets. Below you can see the characteristic streaky and curly pattern of Karelian birch.

The white pieces of a 1900s St. Petersburg set (Chuck Grau collection).

Instead, they show a marble-like texture, which—although I’ve never seen it being used for chess pieces before—reminds me of quilted maple. The use of maple also seems unlikely for an old Soviet set, so I don’t know what kind of wood and genetic abnormality or growth this is. Very unusual.

Actually, I just had a look at other Karelian birch sets I saved photos of, and quite a few of them do have a more marble-like texture, so clearly Karelian birch can look like that. The texture of the Kjeldahl set is still unusual with those large white streaks, but I guess Karelian birch can come in various grains.

A c. 1915 Karelian burch set sold by Mykhailo Kovalenko.

Smyslov’s set (1900–1917) in Karelian birch (recently offered on Ebay by xrarethingsx).

Design features

Before we look at its design, I should mention the most striking aspect, though you don’t get a sense of it via the photos: the set is gigantic, with kings that are 22 cm (8.66″) tall! Even the pawns are striking; with a height of 10 cm (3.94″), they’re as large as a tournament-size king!

As for the design features, the pieces have a bit of an Arabic quality to me, with the Kjeldahl’s flask-like shapes of the bodies (hence I dubbed this set ‘Kjeldahl’, for lack of a better name), and the star-like finials on the kings and bishops.

Another unusual feature—and something that strikes me as Arabic as well—is the use of gems to adorn the crowns of the kings, and the eyes of the knights. As you can see in the photo above, beige gems are used for the black pieces; and for the white pieces, we see red gems. And as it happens, Carnelian is a brownish-red gemstone most often associated with Islam. Not that I think Carnelian was used here; in fact, I’m not convinced they’re actual gemstones. But just to say, my instinctive association of Arabic influences seems accurate. I would argue the bulbous crowns of the royals are also reminiscent of either Tsarist chess pieces (scroll back to the St. Petersburg set to see an example; or scroll down for a second St. Petersburg set) or the domes seen in Arabic architecture.

Another unusual feature of this set is the droplet impact-like finials on the queens. Initially I wasn’t sure which of the royals was the king and the queen, because finials like this—to the extent we see something remotely like this at all—are more associated with the king. 

We see finials vaguely like this on the kings of various Tsarist sets. Below is one such example. More prominent examples can be found in Alexander Chelnokov’s collection (both original sets and his reproductions). Unfortunately I’m not allowed to publicly post his photos, but you can find various examples by performing a search in his Facebook group, Russian Chess Sets (Tsarist, Soviet and Modern).

The white pieces of another St. Petersburg set in Karelian birch (Sergey Kovalenko collection).

These Tsarist finials are vaguely like droplet impacts; a more prominent example can be found in some of the older variants of what I call Soviet Droplet sets, which are made in Ukraine. I’ve come to call them Droplet sets because of the droplet impact-like finials on the bishops which is a feature common to 99% of these sets; but out of about 38 of these sets I found, three of them also feature droplet kings, like the set below.

The white pieces of a 1930s Droplet set (sold by Mykhailo Kovalenko).

As you can see, finials like these—while rare—are generally found on the kings rather than the queens. So it’s fascinating to come across a set with droplet queens.

The knights of the Kjeldahl set are also quite unusual; their potbellies harmonize well with the other bulbous bottom-heavy pieces, but it’s a feature I only recall seeing in a few variants of the Botvinnik–Flohr II sets.

Below is an example of a potbelly knight from a type 3 variant of the BFII set. This one features a rather narrow and fairly horse-like head; an example with a better likeness to the knight above can be found in Alexander Chelnokov’s collection—which, again, I’m not allowed to post publicly. But the potbelly is there!

The white pieces of a c. 1938 BFII set with potbelly knights (Chuck Grau collection).

The Kjeldahl knights also don’t look particularly horse-like. Perhaps more like obese wolves, or a bit like bears. They feature some resemblance to the bear-like Capablanca knights of type 2 BFII sets, like the one below.

The white pieces of a 1935 BFII set with Capablanca knights (Sergey Kovalenko collection).

More curious features

Finally, let me point out a few more curious features about this set:

• The merlons of the rooks being painted—black for the white rooks, and gold for the black rooks.
• The very wide and sharp collars on the bishops—a bit wider even than their star-like miters.
• The thin double collars on the queens, compared to the very thick and rounded double collars on the kings.

Furthermore:

• The really tall pawns, with their obloid heads (i.e., flattened spheres for heads)—which echo the heads of the queens. I find it quite interesting that the pawns show some visual similarity with the queens, as some of the pre-Staunton sets show significant relationships between these two pieces as well. In some of the Lund sets, for instance, the queen looks like a very extended pawn; in the Edinburgh Upright, the queen is like an elongated pawn with an enlarged head; and in some of the Biedermeier sets, the queens look more or less like two stacked pawns.

And finally:

• The middle band on the bases are painted in the opposite color (black on the white pieces, and gold on the black pieces). This isn’t often seen.
• For some reason, all the knights lack this opposite-colored middle band. I’m curious why the maker of this set felt they had to stand out like that.
• Quite inexplicably, the bands on the black rooks (but not the white rooks) are reversed; here, the top and bottom of the bases are painted with a gold rim, leaving the middle band black. Again, I’m curious why the rooks were made to stand out like this—and why only the black rooks.
• The black royals have their bottom collars painted gold, whereas the white royals don’t feature any painted collars.
• The head of the black queen is a lot more flattened than the white queen’s.

Conclusion

And that’s about all I have to say about this set. I find this set so captivating due to many of its unusual features—features that resemble other sets while maintaining its very own identity, and features with distinctly Tsarist and Arabic influences. And of course, a myriad of inconsistencies that leaves one wondering to what extent these were deliberate choices, and what the motivations behind them were. I guess we will never know.

I think many things about this set—including also its maker, and its year and country of origin—will remain shrouded in mystery.

Here is the Etsy listing for anyone interested in buying this set: https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/995624283/old-wooden-soviet-chess-rare-chess-very

If you do end up acquiring this set, I would love to see more photos! In particular, could you take a side profile photo of all six distinct pieces next to each other—both in white and in black? I would love to get those photos for personal documentation.