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INTERNATIONAL EDITION | MONDAY, MAY 10, 2021

“Flames rising from pyres . . . and everyone covered in plastic — it felt like the end of the world.”

A refugee DIMPLE KHARBANDA, a movie producer who had to arrange her father’s final rites Flash point and chess is a canal master, at 10 blocked by Ukraine

KALANCHAK, UKRAINE

Nicholas Kristof 250-mile Crimea channel is the main water source for the area Russia seized

OPINION BY ANTON TROIANOVSKI Once upon a time a 7-year-old refugee A makeshift dam of sand and clay, cov- living in a homeless shelter sat down ered with patches of grass, blocks one of at a chess board in school and learned Europe’s great canals. Beyond it, swans how to play. His school then agreed to drift in the trickle of water that remains. his mom’s plea to waive fees for him to A duck slides into a wall of reeds below join the chess club. the bare, concrete banks. The boy wasn’t any good at first. His This quiet spot just north of Crimea initial chess rating was 105, barely may not look like much. But some above the lowest possible rating, 100. Ukrainians fear it could be the thing that But the boy, Tanitoluwa Adewumi — ignites an all-out war with Russia. better known as Tani — enjoyed chess “Putin could send his troops in here at as an escape from the chaos of the any moment,” said Olha Lomonosova, homeless shelter, and his skills pro- 38, explaining why she had packed a gressed in stunning fashion. After little getaway suitcase this year at her home more than a year, upstream. “He needs water.” Tanitoluwa at age 8, he won the President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia Adewumi’s New York State ordered some of the troops he had chess champi- massed on Ukraine’s border this spring family had to onship for his age to pull back last month, but as many as flee Nigeria. group, beating 80,000 remain within striking distance, The lesson of well-coached chil- and many Ukrainians believe that the his story? dren from rich threat of invasion persists. A prime rea- Talent is private schools. son is the 250-mile-long Northern Cri- universal, opp- I wrote a couple mean Canal, which links Crimea with ortunity is not. of columns about the Dnieper River in Ukraine. It was the Tani at that time, PHOTOGRAPHS BY ATUL LOKE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES main source of water for Crimea, until and readers re- Relatives performed last rites at the overburdened Seemapuri cremation grounds in New Delhi. The site used to receive six to eight bodies a day; now it is getting around 100. Mr. Putin annexed the peninsula in 2014 sponded by donat- and Ukraine, in a secret operation, hast- ing more than $250,000 to a Go- ily built the dam to block the canal’s flow. FundMe campaign for Tani’s family, Now, the fertile plain through which along with a year of free housing. It the canal runs in southern Ukraine’s was heartwarming to see Tani running Kherson Region has emerged as one of around the family’s new apartment, Europe’s main geopolitical flash points. but I wondered: Is this kid really that Denied the rites of grief The tensions over the canal spiked in re- good? cent months after a drought worsened It turns out he is. This month, as a NEW DELHI Beyond the images, the cremation Crimea’s water crisis: The risk of esca- fifth grader, Tani cruised through an grounds bear a painful routine of trauma lation rose in Mr. Putin’s showdown with in-person tournament in Connecticut that will weigh on families long after the the West. open to advanced players of all ages headlines fade. The pandemic has High-powered television transmitters and won every game. He emerged with Covid-19 has transformed stripped the final rites of their usual have gone up just over the border in a chess rating of 2223, making him a space and dignity. Crimea, beaming the Kremlin’s narra- national master. mourning rituals in India Instead, this intimate ritual has be- tive into Ukrainian-controlled territory. At 10 years 7 months and 28 days, into lonely, public affairs come both a public display and a lonely UKRAINE, PAGE 4 Tani became the 28th-youngest person burden. Traditionally, relatives would ever to become a chess master in the BY MUJIB MASHAL, SAMEER YASIR gather to share their grief. Now, fear of United States, according to John Hart- AND SHALINI VENUGOPAL BHAGAT infection keeps most loved ones away. UKRAINE mann of U.S. Chess. Tani had one of the “I couldn’t even show my family Dnieper River fastest rises, for he began playing The lifeless are picked up from infected members those last moments,” said Mit- chess only at the relatively late age of homes by exhausted volunteers, piled tain Panani, a 46-year-old businessman. Kherson Kakhovka 7. And he’s aiming higher. into ambulances by hospital workers or He and his brother were the only attend- “I want to be the youngest grand- carried in the back of auto-rickshaws by ees at his father’s cremation in Mumbai DAM master,” he told me. “I want to have it grieving relatives. earlier this month. His mother re- Kalanchak when I’m 11 or 12.” The youngest per- At the cremation grounds, where the mained in the hospital with her own in- son ever to become a grandmaster, fires only briefly cool off late at night, fection. “You could have everything: NORTHERN CRIMEAN Sergey Karjakin, achieved that honor relatives wait hours for their turn to say money, power, influence,” he said. “Even CANAL at 12 years 7 months. goodbye. The scenes are photographed, with that, you could do nothing. It felt CRIMEA “I’m delighted to see Tani’s rapid filmed and broadcast to relatives under disgusting.” progress,” said the former world chess lockdown across India. They are shown In Hindu tradition, cremation is the preferred method for disposing of the dead. Usu- The virus has spread so fast, with In- champion Garry Kasparov. “The sky is on news sites and newspapers around ally, relatives would gather to share their grief. Now, fear of infection keeps most away. dia sometimes recording over 400,000 the limit, and I’m the last person to say the world, putting India’s personal trag- new cases a day, that no corner of the Black Sea KRISTOF, PAGE 10 edies on display to a global audience. country remains unaffected. But the RUSSIA Residents record the fires from their lanes for much of the day, seeping where the dead and infected are be- devastation has been particularly se- Kyiv UKRAINE The New York Times publishes opinion roofs to show the world why they must through shuttered windows. lieved to be grossly undercounted. They vere in New Delhi, with more than 300 Detail ROMANIA from a wide range of perspectives in wear masks even inside their homes. The flames bear witness to the devas- stand as a rebuke to a government ac- deaths a day by official figures, most area hopes of promoting constructive debate The smoke and smell of death is so con- tation wrought by India’s Covid-19 cri- cused of mismanagement by many of its likely an undercount. 50 MILES about consequential questions. stant, so thick, that it covers the narrow sis. They show the losses in a country people. INDIA, PAGE 4 THE NEW YORK TIMES

Second chance to avoid being a one-hit wonder

LONDON up a keyboard to try to console himself. He started picking out a gentle melody on the instrument, then lyrics popped Unprecedented times. into his head. “Wait, it won’t be long,” he Eurovision hopefuls try sang, “trust your heart and just stay Unparalleledcoverage. strong.” again after last year’s “This song came out of me,” Garvan- Subscribe to The NewYork Times song festival was canceled liev said, “and I thought, ‘Holy smokes, I International Edition. have something beautiful here.’” Of nytimes.com/subscribeinternational BY ALEX MARSHALL course, “I didn’t know it’d end up being for this year’s Eurovision,” Garvanliev When the Eurovision Song Contest was added. “I didn’t even know I’d be asked canceled in March of last year because back.” of the coronavirus pandemic, Vasil Gar- But in January, after an eight-month- vanliev, North Macedonia’s entry, was long agonizing wait, Garvanliev was in- distraught. vited to perform at this year’s competi- “My whole life, I’d been working my tion — one of 26 acts revived from the butt off to get there, and my journey did- canceled Eurovision 2020. Scheduled n’t even take off,” Garvanliev, 36, said in for May 22 in Rotterdam, the Nether- a telephone interview. “I was devastat- lands, 2021 is likely to be the strangest ed.” edition of the contest ever held — a high For Garvanliev — and the event’s bar, given that past winners have includ- hundreds of millions of fans — Eurovi- ed Abba and Lordi, a Finnish heavy met- sion is far more than a glitzy, high-camp al act whose members dress as mon- song contest. “It’s the Olympics of sing- sters. ing,” Garvanliev said. POOL PHOTO BY NIELS WENSTEDT The arena will be at 20 percent capaci- Last year he sat on his bed feeling de- For Eurovision 2021, the arena in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, will be at 20 percent ty, with just 3,500 people in the audience pressed, he remembered, before picking capacity, with spectators remaining seated to reduce the risk of spreading coronavirus. EUROVISION, PAGE 2

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