The President of the Chess Federation os Ugra, the Mayor of Khanty-Mansiysk Vassily Filipenko answered the question of Vladimir Barsky.

— The European Club Cup 2001 for Men and Women will soon take place in Slovenia at the end of September with the participation of the previous year’s silver medalist, the team of «Ugra». Which aims do you set for your team? How do you develop Club chess in the region? — We always try to set high objectives for ourselves. It is not easy to become the Russian Champion. Recently we took the 4^th place in the latest Championship of the country that took place in Olginka and we took the 2^nd at the European. That is why we wish to do our utmost to improve our result in the future.

Besides the professional team we have the national teams of the Okrug  - men’s and women’s that are participating in all the competitions. The children have rather busy timetable, they travel a lot in Russia and all over the world. Women also played in Olginka and start turned out to be not very successful — we took the last honored place which means that we have what to improve. Although at the Olympiad last year the national team of Ugra showed a good result that was much better than their rating seemed to promise.

— What are the principles when you form «Ugra» team? — In cooperation with the coach Alexander Khalifman we stick to the principle that most of the part of the team should be represented by the chess players from Ugra. Of course, it would be more simple to get the best chess players from all over the world and perform with such composition of the team that, actually, will not be correct at all, because our main goal is to develop chess in the region. Our sportsmen go to schools and academies and participation in the tournaments of such a level is an achievement that they are striving for. It is obvious that for a short period of time it is not possible to bring up famous chess players as well as coaches. Therefore we have introduced special courses on qualification improvement for coaches where we attract well-known teachers who either come here to give courses or do it via Internet.

— There are dozens of sponsors on the posters of the World Cup and the Governor’s Cup. What is your secret of attracting them? — Serious companies realize social importance of our work and willingly cooperate with us. Besides, there are people passionate about chess in these companies.

— DO you organize competitions among various state and commercial structures representatives? — Unofficially we unite all people who love chess. Minimum once a year we try to hold such competitions.

— Your Okrug is involved in the chess as a sport since 6 years already. Have you got acquainted with any of the leading chess players of the world? — Certainly. When we stepped on the international arena we have come to know many new people. During the tournament in Poikovsky we see Karpov and many other finalists of the World Cup. It is amazing that Khanty-Mansiysk has become known to everyone even where there is no oil and gas from our region.

— Do you agree with the opinion that chess players are a bit weird? — Everything depends on a personality. There are absolutely normal, adequate people who have other interests apart from chess. Also there are estranged people who are completely passionate about their world — the world of chess.

— Are you satisfied with the level on which you hold «Karpov International Tournament» in your region?  — I believe that this tournament took its place. Before I wanted to let our chess players participate in this tournament, however, we should have lowered the level of this tournament. So, our players have to improve theirs in order to qualify for this tournament!

— Do you still organize the Internet Governor’s Cup? In general, what is the level of Internet development in your region? — Yes, we do. It is very popular to criticize Internet for being expensive and for its low speed, however, the Cup, to my surprise, attracted many participants. If we speak about chess education in general, all schools have internet connection and in collaboration with the Government of Ugra we have introduced computer classes with sets of methodic material on CDs there.