During a chess competition between Anatoly Karpov and Gary Kasparov in the 1980s, the two grandmasters were each asked to name their favourite composer. The orthodox Communist Karpov replied: ‘Alexander Pakhmutov, Laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Award’. The freethinking Georgian Kasparov, though, answered, ‘John Lennon’.

No-one would claim that Kasparov won the world chess championship simply because he was a Beatles fan. However, Kasparov has won the sympathies of people far beyond the game of chess, and his musical preference reflects his particular character – one that was not afraid to declare out loud the name of a person who could never, ever have become Laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Award.