39th Olympiad opened
The 39th Chess Olympiad was officially opened today by the mayor of Khanty-Mansiysk, Andrei Bukarinov. The ceremony included human chess, showing the famous Anderssen-Kieseritzky game, and speeches and anthems.The 39th Chess Olympiad takes place September 20th – October 3rd at the Tennis Sport Development Center in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. Teams of 155 nations will participate in the biannual event. (This was the number mentioned at the opening ceremony, but it's probably a bit less than that.) Each team consists four players and one reserve. The rate of play is 90 minutes for 40 moves and then 30 minutes to finish the game, with 30 seconds increment from move one. The pairings of round 1 are now up: the Open section here, the Women section here.Below that is the official schedule for both the Olympiad and the FIDE Congress, where important decisions will be taken, including the elections for European Chess Union President and FIDE President.
Opening ceremony
Today at 21:30 local time the 39th Olympiad was officially opened. The quite impressive ceremony in complex “Arena Ugra”, attended by about 5,000 people, started with laser lights and a galactic theme, with a globe floating around the complex and children in giant bubbles.
Everything was broadcast online via Livestream, but unfortunately at this point for about fifteen minutes there was only audio and a black screen. Therefore everyone at home missed a big part of the ceremony, including the groups of locals performing national dances.
After this a giant chess set appeared, and living chess pieces entered. The kings and queens of both colours entered after the other pieces, and then a game of chess started. They played the famous "Immortal" game:Anderssen-Kieseritzky
London 1851
Game viewer by ChessTempo
Meanwhile, the names of the participating federations were shown.
After this a video message from the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev was shown.
This was followed by the Russian anthem. Then FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov gave a speech followed by Arkadij Dvorkovich, the Assistant to the Russian Federation President and the Russian Chess Federation Supervisory Council Chairman.
Then Andrei Bukarinov was given the microphone, and it was the Head of Khanty-Mansiysk Municipality who had the honour to officially open the 39th Chess Olympiad. 
The FIDE flag was brought in and raised, and the FIDE anthem played.
Then the kings and queens of the living chess entered the stage again to perform the drawing of lots, with the help of chief arbiter Sava Stoisavljevic from Serbia. The result was that the strongest team in the open section, Russia 1, will have White on board one tomorrow. In the women's tournament, Russia will start with Black on board 1.
Photos courtesy of FIDE, more here
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Peter Doggers joined a chess club a month before turning 15 and still plays for it. He used to be an active tournament player and holds two IM norms.
Peter has a Master of Arts degree in Dutch Language & Literature. He briefly worked at New in Chess, then as a Dutch teacher and then in a project for improving safety and security in Amsterdam schools.
Between 2007 and 2013 Peter was running ChessVibes, a major source for chess news and videos acquired by Chess.com in October 2013.
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