Interview with Mr. Vladimir Bykov

Nadezda Stojanovic:
Ladies and gentleman, welcome to another „Guest of the Day“ conference of the European Individual Women's Chess Championship. My guest today is Mr. Vladimir Bykov, Vice-President of St. Petersburg Chess Federation. Vladimir hello and welcome.
Tell us is this your first time in Belgrade? And how do you like it? Did you get the chance to explore and do some sightseeing?
Vladimir Bykov:
Yes, this is my first time in Serbia, and I am very satisfied so far. Belgrade is a beautiful city, and maybe for the first time in my life I am a tourist at some chess tournament, so I have lot of free time for sightseeing.

N.S.
St. Petersburg was also a host of European Individual Women's Chess Championship in 2009, when Tatiana Kosintseva won the title. As someone who has lot of experience in organizing the tournaments, as you are a FIDE International Organizer, what are your impressions about this year's edition of EIWCC, and what is your professional opinion about the organization?
V.B.
Playing hall is perfect, hotel is very good, and the Organising Committee is doing their best. So, I think it is very well organized.

N.S.
What do you think about the games in the first 3 rounds, we saw many surprises. Many top seeds lost half a point, and some even a whole point?
V.B.
In St. Petersburg, we had a women's team for a very long time, for 10 years, and it was a very strong team. What I have learned from women's chess, is that there are no surprises. It might be a logical outcome, maybe not, but it's not a surprse. Maybe some players shouldn't loose, Dzagnidze for example, but in general, it is never surprising that can happen in women's chess.

N.S.
Do you have any favorites here, and if its not a secret do you want to share with us?
V.B.
Yes. First of all, the plyers who were playing for our team, St. Petersburg - Viktorija Cmiylite, Monica Socko, Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant, Ekatarina Atalik. Then, there are players from St. Petersburg, first of all Anastasia Bodnaruk.

N.S.
What do you think about the current position of women's chess, in Russia and in general?
V.B.
It is very difficult to be a professional player in women's chess, because the prizes are not very high, so there is no interest to play professionally, in Russia, and same in all countries I believe. And I think in Russia chess is not so popular right now. Before, due to the political reasons, chess was very popular, like Gagarin or hockey players. mainly because of the political reasons. Before, chess was so popular, like Gagarin or hockey players. In this way Soviet system wanted to show preferences and advantages against the Western countries. And chess was the part of this idea. I see in Serbia chess is very popular, people are playing in parks or outside. In Russia, people don't do this anymore. In St. Petersburg, there are maximum 10 players whom you can call chess professionals. Now even having a Grandmaster's title doesn't mean you are a professional chess player.

N.S.
Are there any questions for Mr. Bykov?
Mr. Evgeny Surov (Chess-News.ru) asked Mr. Bykov if he is really here as a tourist, or he has some hidden aims behind his visit to this Championship?
V.B.
Hidden aims will be hidden (laughter). I wouldn's say I am a fan of someone here. I am really here to see how it is organized, it's much more interesting for me, because I organize many tournaments in St. Petersburg. European Individual Women's Championship in 2009 was our first experience, and it was not very well done, because we had only 2 months for the organization. So it is very interesting for me to see how it is done here.

N.S.
Vladimir, thank you for coming and sharing with us your impressions, and I hope you will enjoy your stay in Belgrade.

Thank you for watching, and see you tomorrow.