My only piece of chess memorabilia

Back when I was in elementary school, I studied chess. In the last days of Soviet Union, in autumn 1991, I visited the Central Chess Club for the only time in my life, and got this pennant as a keepsake.

I later studied in the Petrosian chess club for a short while, but quit serious playing at age 12. My mindset, to be frank, didn't suit professional chess playing very well - I never devoted time to studying openings and other technical aspects of the game, preferring just to play over the board and play through famous games from books without following much analysis.

After finding chess.com, I started playing regularly again, but my main chess-related passion is chess history, in particular old Soviet chess books. This pennant, which my grandma recently unearthed in her desk drawer, serves as a reminder both for my brief chess-playing past and my amateur chess history-studying present.