A game to play in Russia

Months ago, when we started paddling the Eg River I began to carve a chess set and have been working on the pieces on and off since, often interrupted by the continuous cycle of carving and losing wooden spoons. The set is made of birch wood; one player’s pieces have been dyed pinkish-red using a slurry of crushed raspberries, the others retain their natural wood color. The first game of chess was played on a large birch stump on which we drew a checkered board. However subsequent games have been played on a checkered board of duck tape squares stuck to the back of our Nanook hard-case.

While I love chess, I was largely inspired to make the chess set because we were headed to Russia, which has a history of great chess players; Anatoly Karpov, Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Botvinnik and most importantly Garry Kasparov who held the title of Undisputed World Chess Master from 1985 to 1993 and is often considered the world’s greatest chess player, alive or dead.  In 2005 Kasparov announced his retirement from chess and is now taking part in Russian politics, becoming an influential critic of Putin’s politics. In September 2007 Kasparov announced that he would run for President of Russia, on behalf of the Other Russia coalition however he later withdrew as his organization was unable to achieve the proper qualifications required to enter the presidential race.

By Eric McNair-Landry