In April we reported on Alexeenko, Andreikin, Fedoseev, Oparin, Predke, Vitiugov, Yuffa and the company WorldChess. It is high time for an update.
Alexander Motylev, who has been working as a coach for the Russian Chess Federation, moved with his family to Novi Sad in July. Serbia is also the choice of Anton Demchenko, European Champion of 2021, and of Alexey Sarana.
Kazakhstan will host the World Rapid and Blitz after christmas. Alexandr Shimanov and Daniil Dubov are already there, as they made public while streaming live commentary on LevitovChess. Shimanov told ChessTech that there at least a handful more Russian players above 2500 are in Kazakhstan right now.
Russia’s top junior Andrey Esipenko decided to avoid conscription into the Russian army and is now commuting between friends in Spain and France.
It looks like Alexandra Kosteniuk after staying away for some months after Russia invaded Ukraine has made the opposite move back to Moscow to run her chess school and prepare for the Candidates Tournament. After FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich has become a target for attacks by nationalistic media, may he be the next to leave?
CORRECTION: In an earlier version we reported that Peter Svidler moved to Israel based on two sources. We just learned from him that this is not the case and the last thing he needs now is another round of speculation. Apologies to Peter Svidler and to our readers.