Flamboyant leader's chess gambit puts Kalmykia on map

ELISTA, Russia -- Life is not all smooth sailing for Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the flamboyant leader of the remote Russian republic of Kalmykia.

For starters, his Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit II needs constant repairs because of the rutted roads of his impoverished fiefdom. And then, he says, there is the danger of alien abduction: He said he already has been forced to make one trip on a UFO -- in 1997 when he was on a business trip to Moscow.

``They took me from my apartment, and we went aboard their ship," he said during a recent interview at his office in Kalmykia's capital. ``We flew to some kind of star. They put a spacesuit on me, told me many things, and showed me around."

Yet Ilyumzhinov could not be happier at the moment. Kalmykia is hosting a three-week tournament to decide the world's top chess player. The contest of a dozen games between Vladimir Kramnik, Classical World Champion, and the World Chess Federation's number one, Veselin Topalov, will produce an undisputed world champion and end a schism that dates to 1993, when Garry Kasparov founded a breakaway movement from the federation.

The rift worsened two years later when Ilyumzhinov was elected president of the organization and introduced speeded-up games that angered traditionalists.

Ilyumzhinov, 44, a small, wiry man who has been a chess fanatic since childhood, is brimming with enthusiasm over the contest.

``This match will unify the chess world, once and for all," he said, beaming, from his seat beneath a large portrait of Vladimir Lenin, one of his heroes. ``At last we will have a single champion."

In Ilyumzhinov's role as chess ambassador, he has traveled around the world promoting his favorite game and his beloved homeland.

``Nobody knew about this place before," he said. ``Through Kirsan, people found out about Kalmykia. All the money that comes to Kalmykia to build roads, develop the gas network -- all that was brought here by me."

But wages on collective farms are as low as $11 a month, and Kalmykia -- a scrap of bare steppe that borders the Caspian Sea -- is one of the poorest regions in Russia. Ilyumzhinov, meanwhile, has at least three Rolls-Royces and a Hummer in which he careens around Elista, a small city of crumbling low-rise apartment blocks marooned on the grasslands.

Kalmykia's murky finances have raised as many eyebrows as his eccentric public statements. Chess City, the $50 million complex that he built on the edge of the capital, turned out to be a white elephant: Its foundations are settling, and few of its luxury homes are inhabited.

Ilyumzhinov's reelection in June as head of the World Chess Federation, known by its French acronym FIDE, followed a harshly fought campaign that saw opponents accuse him of dragging chess into disrepute. Nigel Short, the British grandmaster, warned before the vote that ``either FIDE stays a cowboy organization mired in sleaze and shunned by corporate sponsors, or it becomes a modern, professional sporting body."

Yet Ilyumzhinov's survival as head of the organization suggests that not everyone finds his notoriety off-putting. His supporters say his relentless energy and exotic public persona have boosted the image of both chess and his republic.

Kalmykia, the only Buddhist region in Europe, is populated by 320,000 people, mostly of who are descendants of Genghis Khan's Golden Horde.

On becoming its leader, Ilyumzhinov abolished parliament and installed an authoritarian regime, promising to introduce ``economic dictatorship." Chess was made a compulsory subject in schools.

The game, he said, ``has helped raise the image of Kalmykia.

``This is a small republic. In Soviet times nothing was built here, no big factories," he said. ``Now there is a market, investment -- we need to attract attention to ourselves."

But human rights groups have said Ilyumzhinov's government has committed abuses and conducted media crackdowns.

In 1998, Larisa Yudina, editor of the opposition newspaper Sovetskaya Kalmykia, was stabbed to death and her body dumped in a pond on the outskirts of Elista. Two men were caught and convicted of the murder; both were former government aides.

Meanwhile, Kalmykia has sunk deep into debt, partly because the Kremlin encouraged it to operate as a tax haven. Thousands of companies from all over Russia registered in Kalmykia, but contributed little to the local budget. They did, however, pay hefty fees to an agency whose finances were controlled by Ilyumzhinov.

The president insists that his hands are clean. He said ``friends and investors" contributed for projects like Chess City and a $25 million Buddhist temple.

He also poured in tens of millions of his own money -- raised as a dealer in Korean cars before he became president.

Ordinary Kalmykians remain split over their president's bona fides.

``He's one of a kind," said Dzhangar Kukanov, 32, an insurance salesman. ``Before Kirsan, nobody knew about us."

Others, like retired taxi driver Grigory Popravka, 69, are less impressed.

``We pensioners are living on the bread line, while he's building useless great things like that," he said, pointing at the towering Golden Temple.