FOURTH FINAL SCHOLASTIC TEAM EVENT BELAYA LADYA OPENS IN DAGOMYS ON JUNE 1

On June 1, 2018, the 49th final tournament of the traditional all-Russian scholastic chess team event Belaya Ladya (also known as White Rook) will start in Dagomys (Sochi). Since 2015, Belaya Ladya has welcomed teams from foreign countries. This year, more than 100 teams from 78 regions of Russia and 22 countires of the world will take part in the final event. Apart from schoolchildren from Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, England, Estonia, Greece, India, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Moldavia, Mongo-lia, Romania, Slovakia, there are also players from the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Kenia, Serbia, Sweden, and Turkmenistan.

The organizers of Belaya Ladya are the Russian Chess Federation and Ministry of Sport of the Russian Federation. The competition is also supported by Min-istry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Elena and Gennady Timchenko Charitable Foundation, Renault Russia Company, Federal Grid Company of Unified Energy System (FGC UES), and PhosAgro.

The best foreign players will be given the right to participate in the Aeroflot Open 2019. The best Russian team composed of 5 participants will be pre-sented with a trip to France, thanks to the support of Elena and Gennady Tim-chenko Charitable Foundation. The team will play a match against the French schoolchildren of the same age.

Founded in 1969, the tournament Belaya Ladya expands every year. More than 50000 schoolchildren under 14 years of age participated in qualification tournaments in all regions of Russia during 2017/2018 academic year.

22 foreign teams, who won schoolchildren's competitions in their countires, will take part in the final event this year. Let us note that children from 6 countires arrived in Dagomys in 2015, 9 foreign teams participated in the event in 2016, and 17 teams played in 2017.

A team from orphanages and boarding schools is participating in the final competition for the fourth year in a row. Children from the Boarding School №26 from Ryazan Oblast, who won the Ascension tournament (Sochi, 2018), will join other participants in the Belaya Ladya finals. This was made possible by RCF programme aimed at providing chess education to the children growing without parents.

On June 1, the opening ceremony of the tournament will take place in Da-gomys. The partcipants will be entertained by a special programme and a con-cert of Matvey Glukhovsky (piano) and Irina Matveeva (violin).

The competition will be held according to the Swiss system in 9 rounds. The winners will be announced on June 8.

Traditionally, a vast cultural and entertaining program will accompany the event. Master classes, lectures, games analysis, mind games, contests, and sport events will be organized. A two-time Russian champion, a three-time Olympic champion Alexander Morozevich, former European champion, coach of the Russian national women’s chess team Evgeniy Najer, and a two-time world champion in chess composition Oleg Pervakov will work with children. Coaches and pedagogues will be invited to take part in a roundtable discus-sions which will be held by the RCF Executive Director Mark Glukhovsky and other speakers.

On June 3-6, the all-Russian conference of teachers and pedagogues of addi-tional education, who were taking an active part in the Chess Universal Educa-tion in Russia contest, will take place in Dagomys during Belaya Ladya.

In parallel with Belaya Ladya, the final competition of Chess in Schools pro-ject, which is conducted by the Russian Chess Federation together with Elena and Gennady Timchenko Charitable Foundation, will be held. 9 teams from Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, and Pskov regions, Altai Krai, Krasnodar Krai, Za-baykalsky Krai, Chuvashia, Ingushetia, Udmurtia, and will take part in it.

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