On Monday, Izvestia managed to contact the main participant of the unifying match for the world chess title - the head of FIDE Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. It was he who managed to mitigate the consequences of the “toilet scandal”, which threatened the continuation of the meeting between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov. To tell Izvestia columnist Tatyana Vitebskaya about what was left behind the scenes of the scandal, the president of Kalmykia even interrupted the meeting.
Kirsan Nikolaevich, thanks to you, the match between Kramnik and Topalov still continues. How did you manage to achieve this?
Complicated. And everyone is right. It's like Khoja Nasreddin: I listened to one - you're right, yes. I listened to the second brawler - you're right too. So it happened here. The claims of manager Topalov Danailov were basically the following: a person very often leaves the stage. Although the regulation says nothing about it, at least a thousand times you can leave! Four years ago, FIDE made a decision: players should not leave the table. Many viewers, journalists, especially television people, were unhappy that they came to watch the game, and there their jackets were hanging. Because players come, jackets hang up and go to the rest room. They go on stage for two seconds, make a move and again leave. But at this championship, due to the fact that Kramnik’s team, in particular, Mr. Karsten, insisted that the rest rooms were separate for each, we made an exception, and the Topalov team finally agreed. Negotiations on this were conducted from November last year until April. These were difficult negotiations with Topalov and Kramnik. Including the toilet room, lounge.
That is, six months ago, the players demanded to close the toilets?
The Topalov team then requested that this be excluded from the contract with FIDE. And Kramnik’s team insisted that there should be personal lounges for chess players.
And you nevertheless went to meet Kramnik in this case?
Yes. For half a year we found a compromise, and in April we nevertheless signed an agreement. And I did not expect that, as it were, in the championship there would be such a problem. Now Kramnik’s side rested on the fact that the contract was signed in April. But there is one trick in the contract. It says "Rest room and bathroom" - that is, a relaxation room and a toilet. If it was written "with bathroom" - with a toilet, then another thing. Therefore, the Appeals Committee left a rest room for chess players, and closed two toilet rooms. There literally four meters near the stage was an office toilet. It was simply closed for staff and opened only for Topalov and Kramnik. But Kramnik began to complain that the extra 4 meters of running around took about 10 minutes per hour, and in six hours he lost 60 minutes. And he refused.
How do you feel about this?
Of course, I understand that this is the World Cup, the nerves are at the limit. But I have already held a lot of such championships. Participants, their teams use different ways of psychological pressure on each other. Remember, at the Karpov-Korchnoi match they demanded to remove the psychics! There are many such tricks to put pressure on the opponent.
Do you think the toilet story is one of them?
Well, I do not think so. Their team members are sitting, they are fixing. So they say, Kramnik runs out to the toilet and then does not even think about it - in a second or two he makes moves. Although you usually need to sit down, think and make a move. So you had a clue? But maybe he thought it through in his head. Everything is based on logical conclusions — no one can prove anything.
How did you manage to convince your opponents to continue the match?
I told them: you are not only playing for yourself. Jump on the spot and look to the side - to the left, to the right, to the sky, to the birds, to the trees. That is, tear yourself away from the board, because the whole chess world is looking at you. And if the match ends with such a toilet scandal, then you don’t get washed away - neither one nor the other.
How did you solve the problem?
Dissolved the Appeals Committee - this was a political measure so that I had the opportunity to maneuver. He invited the Minister of Construction, ten workers with jackhammers. He said that within 10 hours they would knock down all the tiles in the toilet, clean the toilets. He told the teams: "You’ll go to the store, choose any toilet there." As a result, of course, no one began to beat the tiles. Representatives of the teams brought their equipment, listened to the walls, rang, sealed. And then they signed the protocol.
Is it true that Vladimir Putin was interested in scandal?
There was a forum in Sochi on Friday, we had an exhibition of investment projects there. When Putin walked around the exhibition and went to the stand, I wanted to tell him about them. And he suddenly laughed: what, says, you have a toilet war in Kalmykia? What, your two most intelligent chess players will not share the toilet? I say: "That's why they are smart, they even share toilets." They joked like that.
What disappointed you the most in this story?
Chess players must prove strength on a chessboard. Here the problem is not so much in the chess players, the question is in their managers and lawyers. The most important thing for them is the problem. There are so many loafers there, they also need to show that they get their salary for good reason. This was not their first demand. First, we had one way out for chess players. So they set the condition for players from different moves to enter the hall. We had to cut through the wall and make a separate door from the opposite side. There is no silver lining, now we have three fire exits in the hall.
In your practice, is this the most powerful chess scandal?
Well yes. Thanks to the toilets, the whole world found out about us. 75 million visitors visited our site in two days. My friend Chuck Norris told me: "When they don’t write newspapers about me for a week, I get drunk, I go to the bar and beat someone in the face." Although I still think that they are great chess players. And I continue to be friends with Volodya and with Veselin.
Tatyana Vitebskaya