New Holland on an island far from St. Petersburg…
You may ask why we mention this strange comparison when talking about the ongoing World Championship in international draughts? And we will respond with a little help from trusted sources.
New Holland is two made islands in the Neva Delta. They arose as a result of the fact that in 1719 two channels were dug between the Neva and the Moika River for the needs of shipbuilders: Kryukov and Admiralty. In addition, New Holland is a unique monument of industrial architecture of early classicism. The area of the island is 7.8 hectares .
In 1829, according to the project of A. E. Staubert, a ring-shaped naval prison building was built on the western arrow of the island, which the author called the convict tower, and was popularly nicknamed “the bottle” (from here the expression “climb into the bottle” allegedly came from). Next to it in 1852, a brick forge was built according to the project of a military engineer, Lieutenant Colonel M. A. Pasypkin.
During the First World War, New Holland was equipped with the most powerful radio station of the naval headquarters in Russia at that time, which became famous, among other things, for the fact that the Bolsheviks waged an information war with its help in November 1917
History is always repeating itself somewhere, and sometimes reading rare historical documents, you find something in common in today’s events. Common in some iconic associations, for the purposes of structures and their fate, the iconic events of these structures.
But now let’s get to the point….
Looking at the composition of the World championship in international draughts, it seems that you are present at the Dutch championship among men and the regional championship among women. Such a weak composition has not been for a long time!
How the composition was formed is only known to one person. Or maybe the second one (which is the Secretary General), but it’s not.. exactly. To gather nine Dutch out of 20 participants among men, and not to invite representatives of either the African or Latin American continents among the women – this should be able to do. At the same time, Alexander Mikhailovich Shvartsman should play in an Open tournament.
What awaits us next? After all, there are no Chinese draughts players or Mongolian draughts players in this composition… And judging by the published calendar for 2024, the World Team Championship will be held in the same region. Given the reduction in funding for small and proud federations, the composition of the upcoming tournaments should surprise us more than once.
However….to the results.
