Embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad will be hoping that third time's the charm after a visit from the head of the International Chess Federation and alien-spotter Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad will be hoping that third time's the charm after a visit from the head of the International Chess Federation and alien-spotter Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. The...

Though it involves an Indian and an Israeli, the three-week-long World Chess Championship match now going on in Moscow also provides a glimpse of the weird and politically connected Russian chess scene. Though it involves an Indian and an Israeli, the three-week-long World Chess Championship match now...

... criticize Vladimir Putin's decision to return to the presidency last September, and his appointment as a deputy prime minister adds a strong liberal voice to the new Cabinet. With a prodigious memory for economic statistics, which he attributes to his chess-playing ability, native Muscovite Dvorkovich is widely seen as politically and ideologically close to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The graduate of Moscow State University and Duke University in North Carolina served under Vladimir Putin as an...

... government in partnership with MITs, an investment-development group. In particular, the Multimedia Art Museum promises a sleepless night, as it stays open until 2 a.m. The museum has a host of shows on at the moment, such as one dedicated to Soviet chess sets, which includes sets used in the Gulag. The exhibit is timed to coincide with the World Chess Championship, which started in Moscow last week. The lobby of the museum currently also works as a chess board. Other shows at the museum include...

... the film “Alien.” to July 15. Located at 5 Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya Ul. M. Barrikadnaya. Weekdays 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., weekends and holidays 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed Tues. 495-221-7690, www.planetarium-moscow.ru Multimedia Art Museum: New Chess Figures. The 20th Century: chess champions in photographs, to June 24. Invincible and Legendary (Nepobedimiye i Legendarniye): the Russian defense industry in photographs from 1910 to 2012, to May 30. New Social Utopia in Architecture of the 1920s...

... work on the film “Alien,” to July 15. Located at 5 Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya Ul. M. Barrikadnaya. Weekdays 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., weekends and holidays 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed Tues. 495-221-7690, www.planetarium-moscow.ru Multimedia Art Museum: Chess Figures. The 20th Century: chess champions in photographs, to June 24. Invincible and Legendary (Nepobedimiye i Legendarniye): the Russian defense industry in photographs from 1910 to 2012, to Wed. Social Utopia in Architecture of the 1920s and...

... Britain would be something the British government could do to "raise the profile of human rights while hosting the Olympic Games." The list of officials was first presented to the U.S. Congress last year by opposition leader and former world chess champion, Garry Kasparov. It contains Russian officials allegedly involved in human rights violations, including Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, former Federal Youth Agency head Vasily Yakemenko, and elections...

... events were moving toward a major political crisis. We understood that over the years the Soviet authorities, no matter how inefficient they were, had an uncanny ability to muddle through. If there was some sort of huge problem, they would rearrange the chess pieces in such a way that they would muddle through one crisis by taking resources from a different sector of policy and use them to somehow ameliorate the crisis of the moment. It was one crisis after another, some public, some not so public. They...