[Hip Priest]

I haven't yet found a mention of it at the Voice of Russia site. The ever-reliable International Herald Tribune have this article:

A schism in the chess world that began in 1993 in London will be healed this month in Elista, the capital of the poor and barren Russian republic of Kalmykia on the Caspian Sea.

Thirteen years ago, Garry Kasparov, the undisputed world chess champion, broke with the World Chess Federation, the governing body of the game, over how the federation was organizing a match for the title.

At the time, Kasparov and his challenger, Nigel Short, an English grandmaster, staged their own match in London, which Kasparov won.

In retaliation, the federation declared that Kasparov was no longer champion and organized a match between Anatoly Karpov, Kasparov's predecessor, and Jan Timman, a Dutch grandmaster. Karpov won and the federation proclaimed him champion.

Since then, there have been at least two rival claimants to the title of world champion and efforts to resolve the dispute have fallen through.

Until now.

Beginning Saturday, in Elista, Veselin Topalov, 31, a Bulgarian grandmaster who is the top-ranked player in the world, will play a 12-game match against Vladimir Kramnik, a Russian grandmaster who is also 31 and is ranked No. 4.

The players will divide $1 million, but the winner will go away with something arguably as valuable: He will be the one, true world champion.

The competitors offer a contrast in styles.

Topalov, a physically fit man of average size, is the federation's champion by virtue of having won a world championship tournament in Argentina last year. He plays aggressively and uncompromisingly, much like Kasparov did before he retired last year.

Kramnik, who is 1.95 meters tall, or 6 feet, 4 inches, and has a cool demeanor at the board, bases his claim to the title on having beaten Kasparov in a match in 2000. His style of play has been described as minimalist, much like Karpov in his prime.

After beating Kasparov, Kramnik's play deteriorated and he slipped to No. 7 in the world rankings. But earlier this year, he revealed that he had a rare form of arthritis that had been bothering him for some time. Since seeking treatment, he has played better and he seems to be approaching his peak form.

Veteran insiders in the chess world are excited about the match and relieved that there will once again be one champion. They said they believed that the split has hurt the prestige of the game.

"The title has been cheapened," said Yasser Seirawan, an American grandmaster who lives in the Netherlands. "It really affected sponsors much to the detriment of the game. If Mercedes- Benz or General Motors wanted to sponsor the world chess championship and there is another one going on down the street, then they end up asking, 'What am I sponsoring?'"

So the chess world has gone to Elista to settle its differences. Why Elista? That has to do with the vision, or as critics say, the hubris, maybe even lunacy, of one man: Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the president of Kalmykia who is also the president of the World Chess Federation.

Ilyumzhinov, 44, who has been president of the republic since 1993 and president of the federation since 1995, has spent tens of millions of dollars trying to turn Elista into a modern metropolis.

Among the signature elements of his master plan is the largest Buddhist temple in Russia or Europe whose roof rises 60 meters above the parched steppe and a four-story glass dome called Chess City that has been the site of a number of federation-sponsored tournaments since it was completed.

The source of the money for his projects is a matter of some conjecture, with his supporters saying that it came from his years as a businessman in Moscow. Needless to say, his critics are not so sure.

What is certain is that Elista is a strange choice for a match as important as the one that will start Saturday. Last year, there was an offer from a German organization to stage the match in Germany with a prize fund of €1.3 million. Topalov, at the federation's urging, rejected the offer.

That the match will now be played in Elista, for less money, is a failure of the leaders of the federation and is emblematic of the decline of chess since the split, Seirawan said.

"It is an embarrassment," Seirawan said. "Arguably you have the most important event in chess today, or for that matter for the last few years, and nobody" - especially the world's millions and millions of chess fans, he added - will be going to Elista.

Short, who won the European Union championship last week, put it more succinctly. "Elista is a nice place," he said. "They are nice people. But Elista is not Paris." Still, he said, at least there is going to be a match. That is preferable to other formats that the chess federation has tried to generate interest in chess.

He mentioned the 2004 championship, which was held in Tripoli, Libya, and which used a knockout system like that used at the Wimbledon tennis championships. Partly because of the location and partly because the format created more opportunities for upsets, only five of the world's top 20 players participated in the tournament. It was won by Rustam Kasimdzhanov of Uzbekistan, who was ranked No. 47 at the time.

Short said, "In Libya, the world championship final was watched by two men and a dog."

This time the whole chess world will be watching, if only online.

No luck at the radio Bulgaria site, either although I did learn that the Bulgarian actress Pepa Nikolovahas died, aged 60.