Moscow won the XIII Summer Spartakiad of Russian students, the country's main school team chess event. In Krasnogorsk (August 2–9) the Moscow team scored 14 match points, four clear of Saint Petersburg. Semion Novozhilov (6 points) and Marat Gilfanov (5½) were the best on their boards.
The Spartakiad of students is a tournament with half a century of history: regional school teams play four boards a side, and for many children it is the first away start of this level. Krasnogorsk hosted the final in a sports complex where competitions in ten disciplines ran in parallel — the chess players shared infrastructure with wrestlers and gymnasts.
Moscow's victory was built on the lower boards: the squad's first board drew more often than it won, while the second and third brought the decisive match points. The coaching staff admitted betting on squad depth: Moscow's roster included two candidate masters against most rivals' one.
For Saint Petersburg the silver was the best result in five years: the city's school training programme produced its first harvest. And the arbiters separately noted the tournament's sporting story: in the penultimate round a Siberian team lying in the top three lost a match it had been leading on games — and precisely that episode decided the silver and bronze layout.
Fifteen regional teams of four schoolchildren each played seven Swiss rounds.
Final standings
| # | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moscow | 14 |
| 2 | Saint Petersburg | 10 |
| 3 | Moscow Region | — |
Sources
- Chess Federation of Russia, accessed 07.09.2026
- Moscow Chess Federation, accessed 07.09.2026
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