We also need Southern Africa
On July 13 the Moscow Region Chess Federation president signed a Memorandum of cooperation with the South Africa Chess Federation
Right after the signing of Memorandum of cooperation with Togo, Sergey Karjakin signed the next Memorandum – now with the South Africa Chess Federation. Unlike faraway Togolese friends a huge SA delegation under the command of the 1-st Vice-President Lindokuhle Wiseman Ngubane physically came to Russia.
Commenting the signing of the Memorandum Sergey Karjakin said: “South Africa is not just our strategic partner in the majority of international organizations but is also one of the strongest African chess teams that constantly shows excellent results in regional tournaments and is considered a wonderful player in numerous team competitions. Junior chess education, master classes, seminars and coaches formation – this will all be possible for our South African partners due to a rich experience that was accumulated by the Russian chess school”.
The South African Chess Federation 1-st Vice-President Lindokuhle Wiseman Ngubane in his response word said: “Many generations of South African players look upon Russia as a leading chess state as Russia is the country of origin of the majority of world champions and turned chess from noble hobby into a real mass sport. We are very happy to broaden equal partnership relations and support the MRCF project “Chess diplomacy in Africa”. It is very important that in such a complex modern world our Federation will get a reliable partner. We will become stronger together and the progress of our young chess players will show up quite soon!”
We should specially speak about one of such South African juniors. The staff of our Federation really liked the talent of 12-years old Michael Schwartz that he showed during a simultaneous game against chess players from Thailand. However, we can call this young boy Misha as well as he descends from a family that moved to South Africa 30 years ago and decided to live there.
The MRCF executive director Albert Minnullin spoke about the practical importance of signing such Memorandum: “The document does not only define the fields of future collaboration but also independent events for the organization of which both sides bear the responsibility. Our Federation has a lot to offer to our South African partners – starting from online tournaments to friendly matches on all levels. We are planning to offer regular training for young South African chess players which will allow our partners to increase their chess competitivity not only on the African continent but on the leading chess forums”.