There used to be something in the water in Georgia that turned out great women chessplayers. Now the rivers of the former Soviet republic seem to be tainted with the famous local wines. The past week has seen a barrage of news reports about the 2004 women's world championship that is scheduled to take place in Batumi.
The gist seems to be that the Adjarian region, of which Batumi is the capital, is semi-autonomous and the Georgian capital wants to give the impression that it is violatile and too dangerous to host a prestigious sporting event. This doesn't seem to be much of an exaggeration, especially when a Georgian news site reporting the chess story links to the mutiny of a local military leader.
The Georgian government has said they can't guarantee the safety of the participants, which in my opinion puts them in good company with the men (and Judit Polgar) off in Libya. Not that I have much faith in the proclamations of the US government, but they list Libya as one of the most dangerous places to visit and anecdotal evidence for this isn't lacking. The Arab world is a rather dodgy place to be American these days, for obvious reasons. (And an even dodgier place to be an Arab, according to the casualty lists.) This is why the US Chess Federation has asked FIDE if its players can join the exiled Israelis in playing in Malta instead of Tripoli.
I just stumbled across this new fascinating and horrific depiction of Khadaffi (pick your own spelling). Ah, the chess world sure can pick'em.
The problem with dealing with people like this is that you still need to reward good behavior. If nothing else it will add credibility to your efforts when you punish bad behavior. We Americans have a bad habit of following up good behavior with saying that’s nice but your still not good enough yet.
The real obvious question is why the hell is the FIDE acting as the instrument of this carrot? I know, I know, they are not they are acting on their own behalf and as per-usual not on behalf of the players.
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