Just a quick note about the fall of the soviet dominance of the Chess world. My source is simply my grandparents who have told me about life in the soviet union, having grown up in it.
Back in the soviet era Chess was highly encouraged, it showed logic and problem solving. And it was also a very cheap game to set up. Amongst blocks of communist flats in the central courts below they'd be tables in the summer, where people would come down from the flats and just play Chess.
Workers in the breaks at work would play chess, Chess tournaments were actively played everywhere. It was simply huge.
My grandad was quite good at chess, and he once beat my Mums teacher in a tournament (Who was also a very good, but also very cocky player), and he even began giving my mum lower grades out of spite. Despite the fact that my mum was a Straight A student her whole life. My grandad challenged him about it, and he admitted it.
As you can see Chess was absolutely huge and taken very seriously.
After the fall of the soviet union people were desperate to get rid of and forget everything soviet. And soviet culture. People absolutely hated everything about the soviet union. So Chess largely lost popularity amongst the newly independent countries. As many of the grandmasters where not Russian Soviets, but rather other former soviet nations. And most of those nations no longer encouraged chess in the same way, as it was seen as a very soviet thing to do.
Eventually it has just started to die out.
Countries such as Armenia still highly promote chess, even teach it in schools, as evens with a subject.
But in terms of the youth, out of all my friends when I go back home to visit my family, I'm the only one with a decent skill level in chess. The younger generations don't care for it anymore.
So the fall of communism did in fact kill the power of chess in the region.
So it makes sense that the chess dominance is now more globally spread.
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