18 August 2021

Evgeny Sveshnikov (1950-2021) Passed Away

The famous GM and theoretician was 71 years old.

Photo: Vladimir Barsky
Photo: Vladimir Barsky


Evgeny Ellinovich Sveshnikov (1950-2021), a famous grandmaster and theoretician, world champion among veterans in individual and team competitions, passed away on August 18, 2021, at the age of 71. 

The future grandmaster was born and raised in Chelyabinsk and his chess mentor was the celebrated Leonid Gratvol, who also trained Anatoly Karpov, Gennady Timoschenko and Alexander Panchenko. In his youth, Sveshnikov trained in a Russian chess school under Igor Bondarevsky and master Viktor Golenishchev. At the age of 17, he became a master.

In 1973, Evgeny Sveshnikov won the USSR championship of young masters to earn the invitation to the Soviet national championship, one of the strongest in history. In 1975, E. Sveshnikov won the Union championship devoted to the 30th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War, in 1976 he won again the USSR championship for young masters and in 1977 he was awarded the title of grandmaster. He played in nine Soviet championships and won the Moscow championship in 1983. As a member of the Soviet national team, he won the juniors’ world championship in 1976 and the European championship in 1977. He was the winner or prize-winner of more than one hundred international tournaments.

For 10 years, he was one of the governors of the Russian Chess School and he went on to govern multiple regional schools; for example, in Satka, in the Chelyabinsk region. As a trainer-second, he aided Anatoly Karpov, Lev Polugaevsky, Alexei Shirov, Alexandra Kosteniuk and trainer the teams of several countries. At Olympiads, he performed for the Latvian team.

He has made a sizeable contribution to the theory of debuts; in his younger years, he developed and performed the Chelyabinsk version of the Sicilian Defence, which is known as the Sveshnikov Sicilian in the West. He is the author of several monographs on debuts, which are very popular with professionals and amateurs and multiple articles. In addition, he was an active defender of chess players’ rights, especially the right to intellectual property.

He achieved great success in veterans’ competitions; he was the Russian individual and team champion, World and European champion as part of his national team, and in 2017 he won the individual world championship for men over 65.

The Chess Federation of Russia expresses sincere condolences to the family and friends of Evgeny Sveshnikov.