Hello everybody!

I just wanted to let you all know that on November 28 and 29, 2009 the third Alexandra Kosteniuk Chess Cup for Kids under 6 (yob – 2003 and younger) and under 8 (yob – 2001 and younger) will take place in Elista, Russia.


Elista is the capital of the republic of Kalmykia, a federal subject of the Russian Federation (Russia). It is located on the South of Russia, approximately 2,5 hours by plane from Moscow. Two very entertaining artciles about arriving to Elista and about Kalmykia with many photos can be found on chessbase.com, here and here.

Elista is a very beautiful and unique city. Many important chess tournaments such as the 33rd Chess Olympiad 1998, the world championship matches Karpov – Kamsky in 1996 and Kramnik – Topalov in 2006, Women’s World Chess Championship in 2004, the FIDE Grand-Prix tournament in December 2008, many Russian Championships have been held in Elista.

The Alexandra Kosteniuk Chess Cup for Kids will be held in the City-Chess in Elista. You can have a look at the City-Chess and listen to the interview with Kirsan Ilymzhinov – the president of FIDE and of the Republic of Kalmykia, in Russian, here.

It will be a 8 rounds swiss system tournament with the time control of 25 minutes to each participant for one game. The regulations of the tournament (in Russian) can be found here.

For more information about the tournament you can write me an email, and I will gladly help you.

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk
Women’s World Chess Champion
www.chessblog.com