Eduard Rossel, in his turn, thanked the honorary guest for giving our region the greatest honour to become the centre of the chess world for a while. -Chess is very popular in Sverdlovsk region , - added the governor, - it is not a secret that our chess school is one of the best in Russia. At the end of the greeting Eduard Ergartovich again thanked for 1000 chess sets gifted by the president to the Ural children. Probably in this connection one of the first questions was about the work on the development of children chess in Kalmykia republic. Mr Ilumzhinov’s answer was irrefragable: - When I was elected the president of the International Chess Federation, we took a decision to develop and introduce chess culture at the early age. That is why in our republic there are a lot of chess schools for children and youth. ; we are trying to inculcate children’s interest in game, for the experience proves that the regions and rural schools with constantly working chess circles are the winners – juvenile delinquency decreases and their school results grow. And it is explicable: we know that chess training disciplines people, cultivates personality. These are not meaningless words, there is statistics, proving that the education process and the progress level of children engaged in chess is higher than average figures in the republic.

Then there was a joking question which became traditional for women chess tournaments’ organizers: what is the difference between women and men chess? A unanimous answer was gentlemanlike: women chess is more elegant and exquisite, besides from the men’s viewpoint it is more spectacular. Kirsan Nickolayevich answered the question about preparation for FIDE president’s election in June in his peculiar manner to speak laconic : In fact, preparation for this election is underway during ten years of my presiding the Federation. The best proof of this fact can be our events. Their characteristics including the preparation level and strict correspondence to FIDE’ s line are self-explanatory. Eduard Ergartovich was asked a regular question about his decision to hold the championship in the Ural capital. The governor gave a historic example - a life period in our region before perestrojka. The isolation from the outer world, impossibility to establish international relations, and as a consequence – a threat of economical stagnation. Today’s event , according to the governor’s opinion, is a complete contrast to those times: “New ways and perspectives are constantly opening and the World Chess Championship is very significant not only as a sports event. It also plays a very important role in the integration of our region into the world economy – by means of broad coverage of rich resources and opportunities of our region. Only the championship’s website is daily visited by tens of thousands of chess players and enthusiasts. Such a promotion just reinforces our development, - declared Eduard Rossel.

The press-conference ended quite optimistically. Eduard Rossel answered the question about the possibility of the Men World Chess Championship taking place in our region without beating around the bush: “If Kirsan Nickolayevich says, we’ll do it!”