Visit of the FIDE President to Tbilisi

On the 6th of May FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia where European Individual Women's Chess Championship 2011 is taking place on 6-19 May. There he attended the Opening Ceremony of the Championship which was held in the hotel "Sheraton Metechi Palace".  In his greeting speech FIDE President noted that it is remarkable that the tournament is conducted in the land of such titled and strongest chess players as Nona Gaprindashvili, Maia Chiburdanidze, Nana Alexandria, Nino Gurieli, Nana Ioseliani, Maia Lomieshvili, Nana Dzagnidze and many others. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov also thanked the Organizing Committee of the Championship, i.e. Mr. Giorgi Ugulava, Mayor of Tbilisi, Mr. Lado Vardzelashvili, Minister of Youth and Sport, Mr. Mair Mamedov, general sponsor and Director General of SOCAR Energy Georgia and Mr. Giorgi Giorgadze, President of the Georgian chess federation. FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov Ms. Sava Stoisavljevic, General Secretary of ECU At the Opening Ceremony    Sifu's memories of Tbilisi. Memories of Tbilisi way back during the era of Soviet USSR when Sifu was there with 40 others budding chess trainers doing the FIDE CARDEC Trainers Course led by the late Campomanes with GM Pacenko, GM Averbach, GM Gufeld,, in fact most of the Soviet top GMs were there to give a helping hand with FIDE.  All of us were merited  with FIDE CARDEC Trainers Award. Chess clocks and chess demo boards at only RM50 but it was bulky.  Sifu had nice memories meeting Muslims in an underground Mosque and donating a prayer mat and rewarded with 12 Russian chess books but declined as they were expensive books and Sifu would be overloaded for the flight home in the Aeroflot. When we had a street game against the locals, it was a fantastic attractions, they closed a street as the crowd was in the thousands but it ended up as a diplomatic draw but the fun was there in a chess game like street soccer.  But sadly enough Sifu did not bring a camera, which still taking in film rools. Nice nemories of Tbilisi still lingers. NAME FED. PNTS. Aronian Levon 500 Radjabov Teimour 419,3 Grischuk Alexander 363,3 Jakovenko Dmitry 359,3 Wang Yue 353,3 more on : grandprix.fide.com