Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov is a Kalmyk multimillionaire businessman and politician. He was the President of the Republic of Kalmykia in the Russian Federation from 1993 to 2010, and he has been the President of FIDE , the worlds preeminent international chess organization, since 1995. He has also been in the forefront of promoting chess in schools in Russia and overseas. He is the founder of Novy Vzglyad publishing house.

Ilyumzhinov was born in Elista, Kalmykia. His parents were subject to the Kalmyk deportations of 1943 when the entire Kalmyk population was deported to Siberia Kirsans own family had an impeccable record fighting the Germans . He grew up in Elista, after the Kalmyks were allowed to return following Stalins death. From a young age he became interested in chess, and he won the Kalmykian national chess championship in 1976 at the age of 14. From 1979 to 1980 Ilyumzhinov worked as a mechanicfitter at the Zvezda plant in Elista. After two years in compulsory national service for the Soviet Army, he returned to the plant as a mechanic for a year, and then studied at the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Relations from 1983 to 1989. Between 1989 and 1990 he was a sales manager for the SovietJapanese automobile company LikoRaduga in Moscow, and from 1990 until 1993 he was President of SAN Corporation in Moscow. Ilyumzhinov acquired his wealth with the emergence of the private sector which fol

Source: Wikipedia