The solemn opening ceremony of the festival was held at the Palace of the sports games in Yekaterinburg and the competition program of the event will be opened with a match between Russian Chess Grandmaster Sergey Karjakin and Indian Grandmaster Pentala Harikrishna.

YEKATERINBURG, July 31. /TASS/. Over 1,000 participants are taking part in the international chess festival, Eurasia Open, which kicked off in the Russian Urals city of Yekaterinburg on Wednesday.

Rounds of the men’s and children’s Russia Cup will be also held within the frames of the event and they list almost 800 chess players from Russia, the United States, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Germany, Moldova, the Czech Republic, Serbia and Kazakhstan.

The participants in the Eurasia Open also include about 70 Grandmasters, international masters as well as FIDE (the World Chess Federation) masters.

The competitions program of the festival will also see the participation of the winners of Chess Olympiads, World and European championships - Yury Balashov, Artyom Timofeyev, Lyudmila Saunina, Marina Guseva, Leya Garifullina, Artyom Pingin and many others.

The Eurasia Open international chess festival was first held in 2017 having gathered 300 chess players. More than 800 chess players from Russia, Kazakhstan and Armenia participated in the Eurasia Open festival in the following year.