Every now and then I like to surf Russian web sites, just to see what’s happening on the other side of the world. (I studied Russian in college, spent a semester abroad in Leningrad — now St. Petersburg — and used to be somewhat fluent. For lack of practice my spoken Russian is now extremely rusty, but I can still read just fine.)
So last night I was perusing the website www.64.ru. If you didn’t know this, “64” was one of the main Soviet-era chess magazines. During the transition from the Communist system to whatever system they have nowadays, “64” stopped publishing for a while, but it was then brought back by the personal initiative of its former editor, Alexander Roshal’. The website is full of articles and interviews with absolutely top players. Of course, when you talk about top Russian players you’re talking about the best players in the world — people like Kramnik, Shirov, … Now I’m a big fan of the U.S. Chess website, www.uschess.org, but when you compare them on a strictly chess level it’s hard to escape the feeling that we in the U.S. are the junior varsity.
The latest issue of “64” had an interesting column by Evgenii Sveshnikov — yes, that Sveshnikov — which really shows the difference in the chess culture between our countries.
Sveshnikov was complaining about the size of his pension, and arguing that Russia needs to support its older generation of chess players better. He ticks off the long list of his accomplishments: grandmaster, former Russian chess champion, inventor of a world-famous opening line, leader of a Russian chess school “which produced around ten grandmasters and an uncountable number of masters,” a second for Anatoly Karpov and Lev Polugaevsky in candidates’ matches, and a participant in 40 years of Russian championships, from his first one in 1967 to his most recent one in 2006. He asks, why don’t I get the same credit for 40 years of service that an ordinary laborer would? Instead he gets a measly pension of 2250 rubles ($91), which I assume is per month (the article doesn’t say).
There are a few details in Sveshnikov’s article that I don’t understand, not being familiar with the Russian pension system and all that, but it seems he has two main complaints. First is that a retired athlete of his caliber would be getting a pension of about $500 (again, I assume this is a per-month figure), and so the Russian Chess Federation needs to get its act together to keep up with the other sports. His second complaint is that the Agency of Sport has not sufficiently recognized his accomplishments.
Reading this here in the U.S., my reactions were probably quite different from what Sveshnikov had in mind. My first thought was, “Oh-ho, there’s trouble in paradise!” I was amazed by Sveshnikov’s complete sense of entitlement, the idea that of course he should receive a government paycheck because that’s the way it’s always been. Earth to Sveshnikov: if you lived in the U.S., you wouldn’t be entitled to anything! (Well, there’s a small exception I will mention below.)
But as I thought about it some more, I realized that Sveshnikov is absolutely right. What is a profession? Almost by definition it is a service to society, performed over a long period of time, for which society compensates you during the period of service and after you retire. Who in the U.S. thinks about chess in such lofty terms? But in Russia, they do. They have at least established the principle that chess is a profession, even if the financial rewards are not as great as Sveshnikov would like.
There is one ray of light here. In recent years the U.S. Chess Federation has established a pension fund for grandmasters. I am extremely ignorant about this fund. All I know is that in certain large tournaments, a dollar or so of your entry fee goes into it. I don’t know how large the fund is, who qualifies for the pension (just grandmasters?), or how large the monthly payments are. Does anyone out there know the answers?
As a matter of pride and as a matter of principle, I think that we need to support U.S. grandmasters and ensure that they can retire without slipping into poverty.
As for Sveshnikov, I do think he deserves more than $91 a month. Good grief! Maybe we should set up a Sveshnikov Fund, which you have to pay a penny into every time you play 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cd 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 as Black. Too bad I won’t be contributing to it… I’ll be paying into the Ruy Lopez Fund instead! 😎
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