The dinner was best remembered for the fact they didn’t give us the second tea bag: “You are not supposed to have more than one portion” (like at the World Championship in Turkey). After the meal caused a lot of raised eyebrows we held a technical meeting. Evgeny Ilgizovich promised that starting from the next morning the situation would be improved. His appearance fostered trust. The representative of the organizers put down our requests into her scratch pad and the question was closed. I’d like to mention that the food was fairly good and was eaten up pretty often. And then the tournaments began: elimination and super final. For me this event was pretty unsuccessful: I fell out of the top five. I even shed few tears over it last night but then thought: “Is it for the first time?” and calmed down. I work on chess. Only in one game I stood badly but it is that game that I won. In two last games I failed to exploit overwhelming advantage, Terrible blunders were rather psychological than chess problems. It will pass. I’m fine. So, let me tell you how the world went there. There are not many places for taking a walk. The meeting place is the street from the hotel to the railway station named after Felix Dzerzhinsky.
When I saw his bust I understood there was a reason behind it.
One evening walking after the dinner, I came across the following picture. I even came back to the hotel to take the camera.
It’s just a detail. On the whole, Taganrog is a very decent city. Women had three days off. On the first day, driving during half an hour, we saw the sea. It was dirty but people swam. And among us there appeared one brave girl.
Olga ivkina, Daria Charochkina, Tatiana Shadrina. There are a lot of vacant beach chairs around but there must be a catch in it: to occupy a beach chair you have to pay 100 roubles. On the beach, making circles like a hawk, a woman offers this service. Chickens paid once and fondly hoped they would lie on it by turn. The women went away and came back with a mattress. She put a bracelet on Tanya’s wrist and warned that only a person wearing bracelet is allowed to use it. We laughed at it for a while: isn’t she going to watch for us? The photo imprinted us breaching the rule. The woman kept patrolling the beach and wrangled with holidaymakers who tried to use beach chairs for free. It’s a hard and troublesome work.
Here is that woman:
When I was taking a picture of her Dasha Charochkina expressed a lot of emotions. But I was as steady as a rock: 1) you should be quiet not to frighten off the victim; 2) if a girl walks like that she knows that attracts people’s attention and mine is the most harmless… After the beach we went to the square where people celebrated weddings.
Taking seats on the bench, we discussed all that stuff including costumes. Some of them were obviously unsuccessful. A company of girls. I wonder what they have in their heads.
Much in this way passed the first day off. Alas and alack, on other days I didn’t take part in excursions either. I have a specific light drive like most people though. Yesterday I had to say goodbye to all hopes for heading to the Super Final. Tomorrow the last execution is to be carried out and then I’ll go home. And today I went to buy a dress. I found it few days ago but managed to get it only on the third try. And, of course, that dress didn’t fit me. The other two which I liked didn’t fit either. But number 7 suited perfectly.
I needed to sugar my life somehow… Chocolate and candies are the ordinariness for the average person of intellectual activity or even imitation thereof. My general impression is that everything was ok. I must thank the organizers for making efforts. After all, everybody was provided with accommodation and food. In women’s chess it was for the first time. Who performed how is quite a different question – question to myself. Sometimes I remember the Queen lyrics:
"Pull yourself together |
