“The great day in Russian Go history”
Two Russian professionals – Alexander Dinerchtein and Svetlana Shikshina were promoted from 1-dan to 3-dan by special decision of the Korean Baduk Association on January, 4 2008. Diana Koszegi from Hungary got a special 1-dan status on the same day.
The beginning of 2008 becomes surprising to Russian Go. Two Russian players – Alexander Dinerchtein and Svetlana Shikshina became 3-dan professionals – for the first time in the history of our country. They got this high grade not only because of their results in sport tournaments, but first of all for their role in the development of Go in Russia and Europe.
Russian Go fans expected this for a very long time. Alexander is currently one of the strongest players in Europe, 6-times European champion. Svetlana also showed good results on European arena by winning several important tournaments.
I believe that sport results are not the main thing. Go is not only a sport. First of all it’s an art that take place in hearts of millions of people worldwide. If we talk about art, the ranks have no meaning at all. It is more important to know that people remember you, that they love you, that they watch and enjoy your games!
Some words about Alexander. It is difficult to estimate the contribution he daily makes to the development of European and Russian Go. Alexander has a lot of online and offline students, he supports the famous go4go.net/v2 portal and other web recourses. He is the main editor of the Goama magazine – one of the largest online Go magazines in the world.
Svetlana continued the traditions of her family and started teaching Go to kids as soon as she returned back from Korea. Kazan, her home city, is winning every Russian Championship under 12 and 18 years old for a very long time. Some kids are showing impressive results by improving nearly 1 grade per week! We are sure that with such trainers as Svetlana and her father, Kazan children will appear on the top places in Europe in near future
On behalf of the Go Federation of Russia we would like to congratulate Alexander and Svetlana and thank the Hankuk Kiwon (Korean Baduk Association) and Mr. Chun Poong Jho, 8-dan personally for the support of our first Russian professionals!
Igor Grishin,
The president of Go Federation, Moscow, Russia.
from IGN “Goama”.
