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.

Nowadays, a 13-year-old would probably know more than Bobby Fischer knew when he retired. They analyse all the moves and prepare themselves on their computers. But that doesn’t mean they are special.

When considering the Islamic world, Turkey is the best example of a country where democracy irreversibly gained a foothold despite religious and cultural traditions still respected today. With some reservation, this can be said about Pakistan, too, where we can observe dynamic political processes going on [and] governments change as a result of elections. In my opinion, it is up to the ruling elite to initiate cardinal changes.

This traditionally happens in Russia and in every other undemocratic country as well - the quest for a scapegoat won't be long, either. The easiest way to find a scapegoat is to ascribe that role to former governments.

Losing can persuade you to change what doesn't need to be changed, and winning can convince you everything is fine even if you are on the brink of disaster.

Many Republicans who traditionally were for a positive role in the world, anti-Russian, now they want to defend their party and leader, and they don't care about real arguments. The paradox is the Democrats were so timid in criticising Vladimir Putin. Barack Obama appeased him and now they are criticising Putin's interference in American democracy. It is a strange reversal of the roles.

I certainly want to be involved in politics and help shape the transition. I am in contact with regime critics who had to leave for the West. One of them is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former businessman, who had to endure 10 years in a prison camp.