International grandmaster from Voronezh Alexander Raetsky is well-known as for being a strong chess player so as for being an international arbiter for more than 13 years. Since 1998 he has been the main organizer of the Voronezh Open festival (tournament devoted to the memory of Alekhin). Alexander is the head arbiter of the Russian Premier Cup. We just couldn’t miss a chance to ask him several questions.
- Alexander the first question is our favorite one: how many times have you come to the Moscow Open?
- It’s my third time as a head arbiter. Once I was officiating the Student Grandmaster tournament, and the Russian Men’s Premier Cup at the last two tournaments.
- How many people are subordinating to you?
- There are seven people in my team.
- What are your impressions of this year tournament?
- Russian Premier Cup is a very important tournament. It’s one of the most significant in the Russian calendar. More than 40 grandmasters are playing here. At the same time all of them are the participants of the highest level, they are very disciplined. So we don’t have any big problems.
For me personally there are some hard moments. When you are refereeing at home where you know all the organizational aspects it’s one story, and it’s a completely different story to officiate at the away tournaments. I meet some arbiters for the first time in my life.
The tournament is held in several playing areas. There are as advantages so as disadvantages. When everybody is playing in the same area it looks hard. However it’s easier to control the tournament in this situation. The RSSU has many rooms, so all the services can be comfortably located. When there is only one big playing area, there can be certain problems.
- Please say a few words about the Voronezh Open festival.
- Our festival has been existing for 17 years already. We also host Russian Premier Cup. All of the said above contributes to the development of chess in Voronezh. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov visited Voronezh last year. He had a meeting with Governor of the region Alexey Gordeev and they reached the agreement about the construction of the Chess Palace in the city. Our region chess club is very good but not enough to meet all the requirements of the Voronezh Open.
By the way just before the start of the first Moscow Open festival its organizers Igor Glek and Alexander Zlochevsky came up to me and asked for the advise with regard to the organizational aspects. We had already hosted seven tournaments by that time, so we had enough experience to share.
- What positive aspects can you mark regarding our festival?
- As an organizer I can tell that you have great cooperation with the sports committee. The accommodation facilities are very convenient, the hotels are located close to the playing areas, and their prices are not so high. The university infrastructure meets all the requirements of the organization of such a big festival. It’s great that the university leaders develop our favorite game. I know that President Honorary of the Moscow Chess Federation, rector-founder of the RSSU Vasily Zhukov has much that connects him with Voronezh. And being a Voronezh citizen I’m very pleased with this fact. I hope one day our festival will advance to the same level as the Moscow Open, RSSU Cup.
- Thank you for the talk!
Eldar Mukhametov asked the questions
Photo by Galina Popova