After staying in his record-high second position on the FIDE top players list for an entire year and achieving his peak rating of 2825 last May, Armenia’s best chessman Levon Aronian went a notch down on the latest rankings released by international chess’s governing body at the beginning of January.

Author: Interview by Sergey Mkrtchyan, Yerevan, exclusive to VK

The Armenian national team, having won the World Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, is quite young, so 41-year-old Vladimir Akopian is considered to be veteran. He's already a famous Grandmaster, FIDE world championship finalist in the knock-out tournament of 1999, the winner of many international competitions. The most outstanding success has been achieved by Akopian in team competitions. In his collection there are three high Olympic titles (Turin 2006, Dresden 2008, Istanbul 2012) and winning the World Cup in 2011 in China.

Today Armenian great chess player Levon Aronian celebrates his birthday. He is becoming 30 years old.
Levon Grigori Aronian was born on 6 October 1982 in Yerevan, Armenia, to Seda Sarkisovna, an Armenian mining engineer, and Grigory Leontievich, a Jewish physicist. He was taught to play chess by his sister Lilit at the age of nine.

Bakú, capital de Azerbaiján, albergará en 2016 la 42ª Olimpiada de Ajedrez
tras ser elegida por aclamación en el Congreso de la Federación
Internacional (FIDE) que se celebra en Estambul (Turquía).