On the steppes of the far-​away Repub­lic of Kalmykia rises vast Chess City. This is the cre­ation of Kirsan Ily­umzhinov. He is the country’s pres­id­ent, a mil­lion­aire, and, above all, an acclaimed chess player who wishes to fill all of the Republic’s cit­izens with his pas­sion. Mag­dalena Pięta has set off to “Planet Kirsan” so as to tell the story of both its leader, and its young­est inhab­it­ants for whom chess may be the only way to the bet­ter world.

The film “Planet Kirsan” was made as part of the second edi­tion of the “Russia-​Poland. New Gaze” pro­ject. Could you say some­thing about this under­tak­ing?

Mag­dalena Pięta: “Russia-​Poland. New Gaze” was a series of work­shops within which film school stu­dents from Poland and Rus­sia had the oppor­tun­ity to work on their films in their neigh­bour­ing coun­tries; Rus­si­ans worked on films in and about Poland, and stu­dents from Poland on films in and about Rus­sia. The pro­ject had two edi­tions dur­ing which over a dozen of doc­u­ment­ary short films were made. Among them were “Seeds” by Woj­ciech Kasper­ski and “52 Per­cent” by Rafał Skal­ski, both of which were awar­ded the Golden Hobby-​Horse at Krakow Film Fest­ival. “Planet Kirsan” is the last film from this cycle, and, at the same time, it is the first one that has been developed bey­ond the short-​film format.


Why did you decide to go to Kalmykia with your cam­era? How did the idea to report about the local pas­sion for chess come up?

M. P.: Chess is not a com­mon game – it is a meta­phys­ical game that is con­nec­ted with the attempt to solve the crux of exist­ence, with mega­lo­mania, or, ulti­mately, with mad­ness. The topos of play­ing chess as the game involving a wager of life and death is inscribed in European cul­ture. Like in one of Bergman’s films– one plays with Death. When I read that a man that had come from nowhere built Chess City on the steppe, I thought it soun­ded like an attempt to bring the centuries-​old uto­pian assump­tions into effect. On the other hand, as the Nowhere-​Place was on the ter­rit­ory of the Rus­sian Fed­er­a­tion, and the man was a new-​found mil­lion­aire, one could straight away assume that the mat­ter would neither be as clean nor noble as it had been claimed by the cre­ator of the chess revolu­tion – Kirsan Ily­umzhinov.


From the film we find out that planet Kirsan does, in fact, exist – one of the celes­tial bod­ies was named in hon­our of Kalmykia’s pres­id­ent. It is hard not to get the impres­sion that “planet Kirsan” com­prises of the whole repub­lic which Ily­umzhinov trans­formed into an import­ant chess centre, thus allow­ing it to appear on the map of Rus­sia and the world. In a par­tic­u­lar moment you even jux­ta­pose the president’s por­trait with the chess king – the most import­ant fig­ure of the game. How did Kalmykia look before Kirsan? Can we talk of the cult of the pres­id­ent today?

M. P.: Kalmykia before Kirsan was a small for­got­ten frag­ment of the Empire, and in real­ity it still remains one. How­ever, it is inhab­ited by proud and bel­li­cose nation – the Kalmyks, who among other things sur­vived the deport­a­tion of all the inhab­it­ants of the Repub­lic to Syberia. One of the ele­ments of Kalmyk cul­ture is chess, which Kirsan used a bit like a the­at­rical prop – the sym­bolic key ele­ment in start­ing his revolu­tion. On the huge stage (the steppe) he built a real­ity mock-​up (Chess City) and he gave him­self the major role (cre­ator of the chess revolu­tion). Alto­gether it gave a bitter-​sweet total­it­arian and, most of all, absurd real­ity. Even more absurd given that Kalmykia inhab­it­ants were and are far from cre­at­ing Kirsan’s cult.


In your film the wide per­spect­ive is con­nec­ted with the story of the boys tak­ing part in a chess tour­na­ment. How did you find your prot­ag­on­ists? What do they do when they are not play­ing chess?

M. P.: I met Ale­han and Amir dur­ing my first visit to Kalmykia, when they were respect­ively 6 and 9 and both could play chess very well. As they do not have other attrac­tions in the place in which they live (except ubi­quit­ous foot­ball), the boys prac­tic­ally spend their whole time with the chess­board. They have a fant­astic coach, and their pas­sion acts as a source of a poten­tial career (it gives them the oppor­tun­ity to burst out of the vil­lage on the steppe). There­fore, it is taken very ser­i­ously by the par­ents.


In “Planet Kirsan” we see Chess City, a com­plex, which hosts tour­na­ments. Impress­ive build­ings stand in dis­tinct con­trast with the con­di­tions in which the major­ity of Kalmykia’s inhab­it­ants live. How do the cit­izens respond to Chess City? Is it not just a mani­fest­a­tion of the president’s extra­vag­ance, whose devo­tion to chess makes him believe that they came to Earth from outer space?

M. P.: City Chess is a bit like the com­bin­a­tion of Dis­ney­land and the Palace of Cul­ture; Dis­ney­land because of its impor­ted Amer­ican Dream archi­tec­ture, and the Palace of Cul­ture because by no means does it impact the lives of the res­id­ents – usu­ally it remains empty, and it only comes to life dur­ing the chess tour­na­ments when sud­denly the streets fill with either child or adult play­ers. Another absurd notion comes to mind — if Chess City was meant to be the mark of power, it should at least be added to. Mean­while, it remains unfin­ished, some­what fall­ing apart in areas that are out of sight. Non­ethe­less, it can­not be denied that it pos­sesses a cer­tain per­verse charm – time in Chess City is as if one was stuck in limbo — there are pink houses, flower­beds, and an army of bored guards, who are gazed upon by the painted chess Mas­ters with an ever­last­ing serenity.



By Bolesław Racięski

(Trans­lated by Agnieszka Mruk)


(27.05.2011)