The world’s top chess-playing country, Armenia, faces a tough gambit. Two upcoming big games will be held right next door in, arguably, the world’s most anti-Armenian country, Azerbaijan. Armenian sports officials have threatened to boycott the tournaments.
Azerbaijan’s glittery capital, Baku, was chosen as the venue for the 2015 World Cup and 2016 World Olympiad by the World Chess Federation (FIDE). Armenia, dubbed “the cleverest nation” in the world by the BBC after winning two chess Olympiads in a row (it won this year as well), is not ready to move its players to the enemy’s board.
The two countries have long been in stalemate over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. In May, the bitter enmity precluded Armenia from participating in Eurovision, the annual pan-European pop-music talent show hosted this year by Baku.
The animosity has grown stronger still since Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev last monthpardoned and honored an army officer convicted of decapitating an Armenian man in Budapest.
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It may indeed be a little hard for the Armenian grandmasters to travel to Baku and fix their eyes on the chessboard when there is a convicted axe-murderer walking the streets freely.
Azerbaijani sports officials, for their part, have vowed to ensure the safety of the Armenian players. Sports Minister Azad Ragimov noted that Armenia has participated in boxing competitions in Baku before, with no untoward incidents.
But the executive director of Armenia’s Chess Federation, Hrach Tadevosian, had a different take.
“Chess is not boxing or football to fight and run around,” he pointed out. “You have to sit and think for hours, and you simply can’t do that when you are under pressure.”