Successful Chess Player Levon Has Sacrificed His Childhood. I Am Sad That He Is Leaving Armenia

Former head of the Supreme Qualification Committee, Smbat Gogyan, wrote on his Facebook page: “Levon Aronian and I started going to the chess club on the same day, we played our first game against each other (so to speak). He was still known as Aronov (it is said that Levon Ter-Petrosyan had a hand in his becoming Aronian, I don’t know). Shortly after, he stopped attending school, disappeared from the yard, and three years later became the World Champion among the youth.

Then one day he came down to the yard with a football decorated with the flags of the world’s countries. We were playing with a torn ball, and while he was developing his chess skills, we learned to run, kick, and flutter in the ravines. Levon found no place among us in the yard. Perhaps we treated him with childish cruelty. For young Levon, chess was life, and I have not interacted with the great Levon.

To become a successful chess player, he sacrificed his childhood. I am sad that he is leaving Armenia; I can neither blame nor justify him. But let us remember that he has been a guiding figure for all the young people and schoolchildren infected with chess in the last 15 years.”