At the northern border of Azerbaijan, Daghestan by no means contributes to the democratization of the Caucasus.

As for the eastern part of the former Soviet Union, the picture is rather uniform. Authoritarian structures prevail to differing extents. But we can still determine certain regularities, and the role of Russia is not to be underestimated. It is clear that we would have the same situation in Tajikistan and, let's say, Uzbekistan without the direct influence of Russia.

Though I would have liked my chances in a rematch in 1998 if I were better prepared, it was clear then that computer superiority over humans in chess had always been just a matter of time.

Of course, if people do not want to do any work then it is better to start the game from a random position.

Values-oriented foreign policy of the free world would be much better, supported by the self-awareness of being on the right side of history.

To my surprise I found that when other top players in the precomputer age (before 1995, roughly) wrote about games in magazines and newspaper columns, they often made more mistakes in their annotations than the players had made at the board.

Rosneft, for instance, was mainly built upon capital stolen from [jailed oligarch Mikhail] Khodorkovsky's company, but the IPO was successful with many Western corporations investing in it. This means that it is extremely difficult to detect these assets in their pure form.