Social disgraces...

Over the next few days I am going to run a piece of writing that was written some time ago. I don’t really like to do re-runs as such, but I am going to do so now. The reason I am going to run this story here is because I had a run in today with Egor’s old chess teacher. And it was embarrassing. And maybe more than embarrassing, it hurt because of how this all is attached to Egor.

Now, say what you want about this kid, at the bottom line you always need to remember that he is only 9-years-old. And to have this sort of nonsense going on in his life is simply so uncalled for. But I am getting ahead of myself here. First, I better talk about today.

How do I describe this? I was out with Tanya. We were running our errands for the day. We had Anya with us and egor was at home working on a straff/chess study. If you need the detail, he was studying the Indian defense. Anyway, we saw who we needed to see and did what we needed to do and then, just by chance, I decided to go to one more store where I thought I might buy a particular snack I had been looking for and right out in front was Leonid Linderenko, Egor’s current chess teacher and Boris Kostin, Egor’s former teacher. The store just happened to be right across the street from the chess club. The two men were talking and I said to Tanya that I wanted to go and talk to them for a moment. “Oh no Adam,” Tatyana advised me “Don’t go. I will never talk to them.”
“What is the problem? I want to ask them about the Borris Spassky match.”
“Don’t bother them. They do not care about you.”
“Oh, stop it,” I answered “you’re are being ridiculous.” and walked over to them. Tanya stayed behind. I don’t think either of the men saw me come up.
“Zdratvichi.” I said from behind. Both of them turned. “Forgive me, but I have only one question.” I had my hand out.
Now, I knew that Boris Kostin wouldn’t shake my hand. I knew this from the last time I offered it to him about a month ago during a chess tournament. At that time he refused to shake it and after the rebuff I agreed with him verbally that I also have people in the world with whom I would not shake hands. At that moment I wasn’t hurt really by the snub. I thought it a bit uncouth, but because I understood his enmity, and knew the whole history behind it I didn’t think of it much beyond that particular moment. Linderenko did take my hand though. Not a big deal.
But what I wasn’t expecting was for Kostin to lose it right then and there. Without any warning, he exploded at me:
“Why are you following me? Can’t you see that I am having a meeting here? We are expecting a world champion.” And several other sentences I did not full catch. He was completely irate. I looked at Linderenko and he had a look on his face that was hard to read. I decided to ignore Kostin’s outburst and just ask them what I wanted to know.
“Egor received two invitations. Is he going to play against Spassky in a group game? Because if he is, I would also like to play.” Kostin started to pull Linderenka into the chess club. Linderenka though took the moment to answer.
“No, Egor won’t be playing. He may watch the game.” And then he allowed himself to be pulled into the chess club by Kostin and they were gone. There were no more words. I looked at Tanya. She was horrified.
“Did you see that?”
“Yes.”
“What an ass!” I said to her.
“I told you not to speak to him.”
“That was bullshit.”
“He is Crazy.”
“That’s right. The man is crazy.”
“I ate with Boris Vasilovich. He was in our house. He was with Egor for years. He cooked for him. But it is like I never knew him.”
“What an ass! Did I say something wrong? What did I say? I said: Excuse me, I have only one question… Was there something wrong in my Russian?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Then what the hell is wrong with the man? Is he crazy?”
‘I didn’t tell everything to everyone after the tournament but now I will. I am sorry now that I didn’t.”
“What an ass!”
“Oh Adam…”
“This is why this man should never be able to touch Egor again. And frankly I don’t think he should be allowed to touch children any more in general.”
“Oh my God…”
We went home, got Anya and took her to the doctors for her half year check-up and then came home and had some supper. After we felt better, but we agreed that we could still feel it. What an ass.

So, what precipitated this? Well, I’ll tell it to you. It is a pretty long story so I think it will take a few days, but there was an incident at a chess tournament a few months ago that caused a split between Boris Vasilovich Kostin and us. I wrote about it when it happened but had not made it public. I am going to now, though I am going to let it go piece by piece because I wan’t to leave room for any new developments. So, starting tomorrow or so, I’ll let out part one of the story of what happened between Boris Vasilovich Kostin and Egor at the last major Chess tournament.

If you are one of those folks who have already read it, I am sorry for the repetition. Anyway, tune in tomorrow for part one.

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