Tigran's long shadow

Not an unusual sight in Armenia: chess players on the streets of the small town of Byurakan

On a quiet street not far from the monumental Yerevan Cascade, the clacking of dice echoes. On a balcony of an apartment block, chance decides between victory and defeat in a game of backgammon. However, with another game that is popular in Armenia, you cannot hope for luck with the dice.

The bar “Esthetic Joys Embassy” with its subcultural touch, which was opened in Yerevan by Russian artists from Moscow after the invasion of Ukraine, invited people to a chess competition this Sunday afternoon (as it does regularly). Around 20 more or less serious chess players gathered around the boards with Club Mate, thin Ararat cigarettes and intensely tasting mineral water from Jermuk. The bar's service manager introduces new visitors to the catering and event areas during his short tour as the "freest place in Yerevan". On this day, this is evident not only in the noticeably queer audience, but also in the decidedly casual relationship to the game of kings. Anyone else who asks about chess in Armenia is quickly confronted with big politics and invocations of national identity.

Tigran Petrosyan, the Soviet grandmaster with Armenian background and notorious defensive style, was world champion from 1963 to 1969 and is now a ubiquitous national hero.

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