KAMSKY GETS OVER THE HUMP IN ELISTA
By ANDY SOLTIS
New York Post

June 3, 2007 — CHESS BIG-LEAGUE chess has been played in some of the more world’s more obscure locales, including Lone Pine, Calif.; Baguio City, the Philippines; and Linares, Spain.

But none are as bizarre as Elista, the Russian city that’s been host to more important events – like last year’s world championship reunification match – than any other site since Moscow in the Soviet era.

When the 16 “candidates” for the world championship arrived in Elista last week they were greeted by 98-degree heat (in the evening) and a welcoming committee of girls in local Kalmykian dress who gave them white shawls.

At the opening ceremony, photographers snapped pictures of U.S. Grandmaster Gata Kamsky being reunited with a camel he met in 1996 when he played a world championship match with Anatoly Karpov. Kamsky was told it was his present – if he wanted to bring it home to Brooklyn.

Source: NY Post

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