Several days ago the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov named Khanty Mansiysk «Mecca of the modern chess world» and it was not by accident. On 31 August concurrent with the World Cup the 7^th Ugra Governor’s Cup which is also a stage of the Russian Cup was opened.

About another symbolic chess event as well as about the chess development in the region the President of Khanty Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug, mayor of Khanty Mansiysk Vasily Filipenko told at the press conference. — In the first place let me congratulate all the participants of the Governor’s Cup and Ugra chess fans with the start of another big chess competition. We conduct a great work on chess development in the Region. Such tournaments as World Cup, Governor’s Cup attract the interest of Ugra people to chess. If chess is developed massively, we will have sport achievements, outstanding chess players.

— How did it start? — In fact chess in Ugra was developing since long time ago. But it was a chaotic. There was no special system though there were many chess sections and sport schools in the cities. In 2005 the chess fans organized the Chess Federation of Autonomous Okrug. From that moment the new stage of the chess development started in the region. We started to organize big known sport tournaments; we implemented the educational program and many other things.

— How did you come to a decision that chess should become one of the main sport in the regions, Please tell us about the educational program «Chess in School» — Naturally any development and organization of such large-scale tournaments would be impossible without a support of the Autonomous Okrug Government and Alexander Vasilievich Filipenko who was at the position of the Head of the region at that time. He helped us a lot in the period of the federation formation.

The regional educational program was worked out to develop the public chess in our Okrug. According to the program chess has become a separate school subject. Today about 35% of all educational institutions use this program. Children, having acquainted with the game, come to the sections later on. That is why the best success was achieved in children’s chess. Among the pupils of Ugra chess school there are winners of different competitions of different level and also we have the European Girl Chess Champion among schoolchildren.

— Do you have any statistics to show the results which have been achieved thanks to «chess in school» program? — We have not recorded any statistics so far for it is a huge work. But we follow the progressive experience of other chess regions, in particular Kalmykia. There are concrete data that as a result of the chess program development the level of crime rate and narcomania among youth have decreased, children improve their school results. Besides schoolchildren start fascinated with other sports and culture, apart from chess.

— How was the Governor’s Cup born? — In 2005 the first World Cup took place in Ugra. In the same year we organized the first Governor’s Cup. At that time it was very small tournament with 40−45 participants from three neighbor regions — Yamal, Ugra and Tuymen. This year it is our 7^th edition of the Cup. 156 chess players from 8 countries will fight for the Cup, among them there are more than 30 Grandmasters. We have started the Governor’s Cup some days after the start of the World Cup on purpose: those participants who were eliminated after the 1 round can have a chance to fight for the main trophy of the Okrug’s Cup. There are nine participants from the World Cup. Imagine how important it is for our young chess players to play against strong Grandmasters who were just taking part in the World Cup. Believe me this is worth a lot!

— There is a fourth World Cup in Khanty Mansiysk, you organized the 39 Chess Olympiad on an excellent level last year. How are you planning to develop further?

— As long as the big International tournaments are concerned already in the next year the Ugra capital will host the Women’s World Chess Championship. If we have set up such high a quality standard, we should maintain it. If FIDE still supports its idea to hold its 90s anniversary in Khanty Mansiysk, we are pleased to welcome it.