Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

His parents were subject to the Kalmyk deportations of 1943 when the entire Kalmyk population was deported to Siberia – Kirsan's own family had an impeccable record fighting the Germans (he was named after a great-uncle who served in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War and committed suicide after having been ordered to execute large numbers of captured Whites).

He grew up in Elista, after the Kalmyks were allowed to return following Stalin's death.

Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov (Кирса́н Никола́евич Илюмжи́нов, ; Kalmyk: Үлмҗин Кирсән, Ülmcin Kirsən, ; born 5 April 1962) is a Russian oligarch, administrator and politician.

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 mechanic-fitter at the Zvezda plant in Elista.

After serving two years with 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 Soviet-Japanese automobile company "Liko-Raduga" 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 followed the collapse of the USSR.

Kirsan was married to Danara Ilyumzhinova (née Davashkina) and they have one son, David.

Ilyumzhinov also has two brothers, Sanal and Vyacheslav.

He is now married for the third time.

Third wife since July 27, 2021 — Diana Dmitrievna Ilyumzhinova (née Gurova)

In addition to his native Kalmyk and Russian, he is fluent in English, Japanese, and speaks a little Korean, Mongolian and Chinese.

He was President of the Republic of Kalmykia in the Russian Federation from 1993 to 2010, and was president of FIDE, the chess international governing body, from 1995 to 2018.

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.

He has been an honorary president of the former Kalmykian FC Uralan.

Ilyumzhinov was born in Elista, Kalmykia.

On 12 April 1993, Ilyumzhinov was elected as the first president of the Republic of Kalmykia, and remained president until 2010.

Soon after his election, Ilyumzhinov introduced presidential rule, concentrating power in his own hands.

He called early elections on 15 October 1995 and was re-elected unopposed, this time for a 7-year term.

After his re-election in 1995, Ilyumzhinov reportedly told a journalist from the Russian daily Izvestia, "Irrespective of what I tell people, I give them instructions on a subconscious level, a code. I do the same thing when I communicate with Russian citizens from other regions. I am creating around the republic a kind of extra-sensory field and it helps us a lot in our projects."

Ilyumzhinov has spent millions of dollars on chess and supporting religion.

He built a Catholic church after a visit with Pope John Paul II.

He says has also built a mosque, a synagogue, 22 Orthodox churches, and 30 Buddhist temples.

Chess was made a compulsory subject in the first three years of elementary school—the only place in the world where this is the case.

The region now has numerous champions.

Ilyumzhinov has drawn worldwide attention for claiming that in September 1997 he was taken from his flat by aliens and travelled in their spaceship, visiting another planet.

He claims three of his staff searched his flat during this, failing to find him, and could not explain how he then reappeared in his bedroom an hour later.

A Chess Notes feature article by Edward Winter provides a comprehensive collection of Ilyumzhinov's own words on his alleged encounters with aliens.

These claims brought Illumzhinov a lot of media attention both in Russia and internationally and have been instrumental in making him better known outside the chess world.

On 8 June 1998, Larisa Yudina, a publisher of an opposition newspaper, was stabbed to death in Elista.

He won re-election in 2002.

Ilyumzhinov's election platform for the presidency of Kalmykia included promising voters $100 each and a mobile phone for every shepherd—much of the population of Kalmykia living from agriculture.

He once campaigned under the slogan "a wealthy president is a safeguard against corruption."

He also pledged to introduce what he called an "economic dictatorship" in the republic, as well as to continue to promote chess in Kalmykia, in Russia and to the wider world.

In 2004, police dispersed a small number of demonstrators who demanded his resignation.

When Australian journalist Eric Campbell interviewed people in Elista about Ilyumzhinov, he found that many were happy that he had managed to gain widespread attention for Kalmykia through chess, although one was slightly critical of the money invested in chess projects.

The 14th Dalai Lama has visited Kirsan Ilyumzhinov on many occasions and has blessed a number of the temples in Elista, as well as Kalmyk Buddhist temples overseas.

Ilyumzhinov denies persistent accusations of diverting the republic's resources for his own use and of suppressing media freedom.