Well, a decision has been adopted to make Stepanakert a theater for quite peaceful struggle - the chess. Apparently it was a rather dubious one initially, as well as other decisions of FIDE about conducting tournaments in conflict regions throughout the world (those were later cancelled). So far as nothing was foretelling a crisis and nobody expressed the overt discontent, the tournament began.
It was already on 12th of March - GM Ainur Sofieva, the president of the Azerbaijan chess federation, made a statement at her press conference in Azerbaijan ministry of youth, sports and tourism - in her opinion the tournament could not have a status of the official FIDE event. Nagorny Karabakh has the official status of Azerbaijan territory, while the Azerbaijan chess federation did not take part whatsoever in organizing the event. The Armenian chess federation also kept aloof from the tournament but sent a greeting message to the participants. Perhaps, it is quite understandable because the official organizers were GM Smbat Lputian, the director of the Yerevan chess Academy, and the government of Nagorny Karabakh not recognized by Azerbaijan.
The official protest notes were sent to FIDE and to the national federations represented by the competitors. Kirsan Illumzhinov assured that FIDE should obey the law. To finally clarify the issue, the FIDE Council meeting is to take place in Baku by the end of March and Kirsan Illumzhinov is expected to come there. In its turn the Russian chess federation expressed regret about the Russians taking part in the competition - GM Mikhail Kobalia and the arbiter Anatoly Bykhovsky. The statement mentioned that their participation was not agreed with the Azerbaijan chess federation. 'The chess tournament in Nagorny Karabakh were not included in the FIDE calendar, and neither the chess player nor the arbiter was not officially sent on assignment for this competition', - the statement says - 'We hope that this incident will not affect friendly relationships between our federations'.
The bigger scandal flared up around the young Georgian player Bahadur Jobava. First his participation there was planned but then the Georgian chess federation decided not to send its representative to the competition.
Yet Bahadur came to the Nagorny Karabakh capitol … as a honorary guest of the tournament. He gave a simultan play for the local children team. The organizers caught the opportunity and put out the Georgian national flag by the entrance of hall where the tournament was held. This evoked an utter irritation in the Georgian chess federation co-president and the FIDE vice president Zurab Azmaiparashvili. The 21-year old chess player was ordered to apologize in public to the leadership of his native federation as well as to the Azerbaijan chess federation. If Jobava will not obey, then he is a subject to the most severe sanctions from the Georgian chess federation including termination of his stipend and expelling him from the number of the FIDE world championship.
Of course, the impression of the tournament was spoiled amongst the foreign participants. 'Repressions' affected not only chess players from the ex-Soviet space - suddenly an advertisement was put on the official Internet site of the tournament that the game Asrian - Ghaem Magemi from round 8 will be played 'later'. It turned out that the Iranian chess federation received an official note from the Azerbaijan chess federation and forbidden their grandmaster to play the last but one round! Ghaem obeyed and then was given a kind permission after the last round - he could play! The Iranian chess player entered the tournament hall 38 minutes after the beginning of the last round and two minutes before the technical deadline.
We believe that the chess players must not suffer from the political conflicts. The world champion X Boris Spassky shares this opinion. He was also invited as a honorary guest of the tournament and mentioned that 'The chess frequently gets involved in politics. Pitifully, this tournament has become a kind of political polygon. I hope that the sense will prevail.'
As for the chess itself, participation of Tigran Petrosian in the Petrosian's memorial arose huge interest. It has nothing to do with the spiritualism and reincarnation - simply a young talented master emerged in Armenia, being a full namesake of the world champion IX! By the way, he is a complete antipode to the great Tigran in his style. Tigran was the main one to breach the peace in the tournament - he found the most fantastic ideas while playing there. He could have obtained a higher standing in the resulting table had he not problems with realization of the advantage.