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The History of Go in Russia, 2003

Published under the permission of the author – Alexey Lazarev. About the author: Alexey Lazarev is 11-time Russian champion, 2-time European champion.

Perhaps, the first literary mentioning about Go in Russia appeared in the beginning of the XX-th century (1902 – Encyclopaedia edited by F. Brockhaus and I. Efron). Go was named “oblavnie shashki” (battue draughts) then. In 1914 an unknown author published a brochure with the game rules description. From that time and until the early sixties nobody noticed any significant mentions about Go activity in Russia.

In 1962 Postnikov M.M. – a Russian Academician and some others mathematicians from Moscow published an article about Go in the journal “Yuniy technik” (“Young technician” in English). This journal was extremely popular among senior schoolchildren. However we can state that the real birth of Go in Russia happened in 1965. At that very time a Go enthusiast Youriy Filatov created the first Go club in Leningrad (the old name of Saint-Petersburg). The Go club was under patronage of the Central Leningrad Chess Club. There were quite favorable conditions for Go promotion then. A year later the number of Go circles and Go clubs in Leningrad increased immensely. Many big Go tournaments were organized. Few hundreds of participants took part in some of them. The results of Go activities were so great that it made impossible for local authorities to ignore it. In 1968 Leningrad Sport Committee even planned to support some of Go events. 

Read more:http://rusgo.org/history/