Sergey Karjakin is one of the Candidates for President of the Russian Chess Federation
Chess politics appeared in the most unexpected environment: Russia.
Chechnya Chess Federationn nominated Sergey Karjakin, an outspoken Putin supporter, to run for President of the Russian Chess Federation against incumbent Andrey Filatov (also an outspoken Putin supporter) in the upcoming elections on December 17th in Moscow.
In a cryptic world of Russian ‘real politik’, being endorsed by the Republic of Chechnya effectively means being supported by Ramzan Kadyrov, a highly influential Chechen strongman with something of a cult following. Outside of Russia, Kadyrov is under all international sanctions imaginable.
In Russian chess, the presidential election is similar to that in FIDE, where local federations convene on the Election Day and cast a vote for one of the challengers. In his election bid, Karjakin is deploying the image and notoriety of Kadyrov and is showing to the local federations that he has strong support. Andrey Filatov, a well-connected oligarch, will no doubt try to employ his Kremlin connections to signal to the local federations that he is still the candidate preferred by the Kremlin.
Sergey Karjakin, the 2016 World Championship challenger, born in Crimea and playing under the Ukrainian flag until 2009 when he switched to the Russian Federation, is actually a formidable opponent for Filatov. Following the annexation of Crimea, Karjakin vocally supported Putin, and in February 2022 he published an Open Letter to the Russian President in which he supported the Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. Since then he was actively involved in the Russian government’s efforts to promote the war against Ukraine.
After his election announcement, Karjakin met with the top Russian officials, showing that he is able to amass a strong support.
Karjakin also announced his candidacy on his Telegram channel and said that he particularly wants to take Russian chess to a fundamentally new level.
No doubt, he managed to get some real politics into chess. Now both challengers are heavily involved in actual campaign, and even though the fight is mainly about who has the stronger connections to the Kremlin, it is somewhat refreshing to see some actual campaigning in chess.
