The Tsar’s Opponent

Garry Kasparov takes aim at the power of Vladimir Putin.

by David Remnick

On a recent summer evening, the greatest player in the history of chess, Garry Kasparov, wrapped up an exhausting series of meetings devoted to the defeat of the Kremlin regime. After days of debate, a motley pride of unlikely revolutionaries – bearded politicos, earnest academics, and multigrained environmentalists – collected their cigarettes and left Kasparov’s apartment, divided and worn out. Little had been accomplished. Crumpled drafts of fevered proclamations lay scattered on the kitchen table. Puffy-eyed and unsmiling, Kasparov grunted a curt farewell to his comrades and went off to make yet another urgent telephone call.

Kasparov is forty-four. He was the world chess champion for fifteen years. Until his retirement, two years ago, his dominance was unprecedented. Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Fischer – none came close. Chess has outsized meaning in Russia, and Kasparov at home was a cross between the greatest of athletes and a revered intellectual. Now he has volunteered for grim and, very likely, futile duty. As the most conspicuous leader of Drugaya Rossiya (the Other Russia), an umbrella group of liberals, neo-Bolsheviks, and just about anyone else wishing to speak ill of Vladimir Putin.

Ideas Versus Experience Clash In Primaries

By Galina Stolyarova

As Garry Kasparov faces off with Mikhail Kasyanov in a series of primaries being held by The Other Russia Coalition to elect a unified opposition candidate that would oppose pro-Kremlin rivals in the forthcoming presidential elections, the contest is one of political steadfastness verses leadership experience.

In a series of regional primaries being conducted in 54 Russian cities, former chess champion Kasparov and former prime minister Kasyanov have so far led the field. Kasparov won the vote in St. Petersburg on Sunday. The list of potential candidates in the primaries also includes Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov, emigre dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, liberal State Duma deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov, former leader of the Union of Right Forces Boris Nemtsov and People movement leader Sergei Gulyayev.

The decisive vote takes place this coming Sunday during the opposition coalition’s federal congress in Moscow.

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