Kirsan Ilyumzhinov
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LETTER FROM RUSSIA PLANET KIRSAN Inside a chess master’s fiefdom. BY MICHAEL SPECTER irsan Ilyumzhinov is not your typical term of office. He finds little beauty in post-Soviet millionaire Buddhist democracy and readily concedes that autocrat.K He is the ruler of Kalmykia, one his republic is corrupt. (“Who was it that of the least well known of Russia’s twenty- they arrested last week?’’ he said to me. one republics. He also happens to be pres- “Something having to do with the in- ident of the Fédération Internationale spection of the lower courts—for bribes, des Échecs, or FIDE, the governing body or something. Anyway, while money ex- of world chess. Ilyumzhinov functions a ists, while there is government, beginning bit like the Wizard of Oz. Instead of a with the Roman Empire, and in the thou- balloon, though, he uses a private jet. In sands of years since—it’s always been a Kalmykia, a barren stretch of land wedged problem.”) between Stavropol and Astrakhan, on the Ilyumzhinov has clashed many times Caspian Sea, you can’t miss the man: his with the Kremlin—most famously when, picture dominates the airport arrivals hall, in 1998, he threatened to sever ties with and billboards all along the rutted road Russia and turn Kalmykia into an inde- that leads to Elista, the capital, show him pendent tax haven, like Luxembourg or on horseback or next to various people he Monaco. Kalmykia is only a few hundred regards as peers—Vladimir Putin, the kilometres north of Chechnya, which Dalai Lama, the Russian Orthodox Pa- has been attempting, bloodily, to secede triarch Alexy II. At the local museum, an from Russia for three hundred years. exhibit called Planet Kirsan displays gifts Moscow does not joke about those is- that he has received from visiting digni- sues, and in 2004 Putin put a stop to the taries. Another exhibit, devoted to his direct election of regional leaders. The chess memorabilia, is on view at the Chess new rules looked certain to end the Museum, which is housed on the third flamboyant young Ilyumzhinov’s politi- floor of the Chess Palace, in the center of cal career. Yet, last June, Putin flew to Chess City, which Ilyumzhinov built on Elista and spent an hour alone with him. the outskirts of the capital—at a cost of Nobody revealed what was said, but nearly fifty million dollars—for the 1998 when the two men emerged and posed Chess Olympiad. for pictures a glimmer of delight shone in Ilyumzhinov was the Kalmyk national Ilyumzhinov’s deep black eyes. Putin champion by the age of fourteen, and he looked stiff, dour, and paternal. When is convinced that, with his authority as the time came to name a new leader, the president of FIDE, he can turn a nearly Putin nominated the old one. The choice empty desert the size of Scotland into a was ratified instantly by the parliament chess paradise. He sees Kalmykia as the that Ilyumzhinov had created to replace crossroads on a modern version of the the one that he had dismissed. Silk Route, with hordes of chess players Ilyumzhinov called his autobiography, replacing caravans of Khazars and Scyth- published in 1998, “The President’s ians. “Everything here comes from my Crown of Thorns.’’ (Chapter titles in- image,’’ he told me, with a shrug, one af- clude “Without Me the People Are In- ternoon not long ago. “I am lifting the re- complete,” “I Become a Millionaire,’’ and public up.’’ “It Only Takes Two Weeks to Have a Many people dispute the last part of Man Killed.”) In the book, he describes that assertion, but nobody questions the growing up in Elista. After high school, first. Ilyumzhinov was elected President he worked in a factory and served in the in 1993, at the age of thirty-one. He im- Soviet Army. He then attended Mos- mediately abolished the parliament, al- cow’s Institute for Foreign Relations, tered the constitution, and lengthened his where he met people like Brezhnev’s 112 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 24, 2006 TNY—2006_04_24—PAGE 112—133SC.112—133SC.—#2 PAGE—CHANGE IN ITALIC TYPE AT TOP grandson and Castro’s nephew, establish- ing connections that proved useful in the waning days of Communism, and even more so afterward. Ilyumzhinov profited greatly from the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Like many other ambitious biz- nesmeny who found themselves in Mos- cow in the early, lawless days of post- Soviet capitalism, he walked away with millions—nobody really knows how much—by, among other things, trading automobiles, and he has said that he owns a stake in fifty companies, including some banks. Oddly for a chess player, Ilyumzhinov seems incapable of sitting still for more than five minutes (perhaps that is because he is also a former Kalmyk boxing cham- pion). He is a stylish man—tall and wiry—and, in a part of the world where “dressed up” often means wearing clothes with buttons, Ilyumzhinov prefers well- tailored dark suits, crisp white shirts, and boldly patterned rep ties. His brown penny loafers are shiny and European. Ilyumzhinov’s chess gig keeps him on the road much of the time, but when he is in Elista he moves around town in a white Rolls-Royce, followed closely by a Range Rover and a Cadillac that he bought six- teen years ago in Vienna. He keeps a black Rolls in Moscow to use on his fre- quent trips there. It has often been said that Ilyumzhinov owns ten Rolls-Royces. He denies it. “I never had ten,’’ he said. “Six, but not ten. It’s a good car. Well made, dependable. By the way, they are not the government’s. They’re my cars. I paid for them and I drive around in them. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov says of Kalmykia, “Everything here comes from my image.” The republic didn’t pay anything.’’ With as much as seventy per cent Their wool is soft, but their hooves, pot. It was a novel idea, and people were of the labor force unemployed and a sharpened by life on jagged mountain- excited, but the cell phones did little to al- huge regional debt to Moscow, Kalmykia sides, cut like razors through the delicate leviate poverty. doesn’t have the kind of economy that soil. Kalmykia became Europe’s first can absorb the purchase of many luxury man-made desert, officially recognized was supposed to meet with Ilyumzhi- cars. Ilyumzhinov may be wealthy, but as an environmental disaster area by nov for the first time on a Saturday; his people certainly aren’t, and few believe the United Nations. In satellite photo- whenI I arrived at his office, however, his that chess will do much to change that. graphs, it looks like the moon; only the press secretary explained that some rich For thousands of years, Kalmykia’s rich largest stretches of Central Asia compare people had suddenly flown in from Mos- black earth provided an ideal environ- in bleak expanses of emptiness. The sheep cow “on a private plane” and the Presi- ment for raising sheep and other animals. population, while still the main source of dent had taken them wolf hunting. The In the nineteen-fifties, the Soviets de- income, has been devastated, and at- meeting would have to wait. Rich people cided to capitalize on the grazing oppor- tempts to raise camels on the desert ter- are flying in more frequently these days, tunities there and brought in more than a rain have been only partly successful. because Kalmykia has oil and gas and an million new sheep, but the topsoil was When Ilyumzhinov first ran for Presi- even more important resource: the sea. thin, and there was not enough grass to dent, in 1993, he said that he would re- Ilyumzhinov has made an agreement feed that many animals. In addition, ag- solve this problem. He also promised with a group of German investors and ricultural officials in Moscow had de- each shepherd in Kalmykia a mobile Iranian oil producers to develop a port on STEVE BRODNER cided that only merino sheep would do. phone—his version of a chicken in every the Caspian, at Lagan. The plan is to ship THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 24, 2006 113 TNY—2006_04_24—PAGE 113—133SC.—LIVE ART R15042_RD—#2 PAGE, ART FIX oil through the republic to India, which the World Championship of chess. traterrestrials put a yellow spacesuit on needs it badly. Kalmykia—or, at least, Fischer played brilliantly and acted like me. They gave me a tour of the spaceship Ilyumzhinov—stands to earn millions. a spoiled brat. The acrimonious match, and showed me the command center. I “We don’t want to herd sheep our entire which was held on neutral ground, in Ice- felt very comfortable with them.’’ Ilyum- lives,’’ he told me when we finally met. land, reverberated with dark echoes of the zhinov relies heavily on the services of a “We also want to develop, to civilize. For Cold War. Fischer can no longer return Bulgarian astrologer named Vanga, who some reason, in America the people think to the United States; he is under indict- told him that he would become president they’re entitled to live well. We also want ment for violating sanctions against the of both Kalmykia and FIDE. She also said to live well! We want to build a port. We former Yugoslavia by playing a rematch that he would build an oil pipeline and a want to develop trade. We want to create against Spassky there in 1992.