[blind-chess] Report on a visit to the exhibition on the Fischer-Spassky match
- From: Guy Whitehouse <guywhitehouse1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: blind-chess <blind-chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 15:44:35 +0100
I have just come back from a holiday in Iceland where I got the chance
to visit an exhibition on the 1972 Fischer-Spassky world championship
match. I had been made aware of the existence of this exhibition by a
member of this group, Edward Zolotarevsky during the course of two
friendly games we are playing.
The exhibition was originally opened in Selfoss where Fischer was
buried, but then moved to the Reykjavik hotel that Fischer stayed in
for the duration of the match, now called Hotel Natura. It is
relatively small in scale; it does not for example go into great
detail on Fischer’s and Spassky’s entire chess career. However what is
on display is likely to be of interest to the genuine chess
enthusiast.
The exhibition starts with the text of some newspaper articles printed
before the match started and with an explanation of why the match was
considered to be of such importance. There is mention of the fact that
a BBC poll actually voted the match as one of the greatest sporting
events of the century (number 10, apparently). I certainly hadn’t
known that before I visited the exhibition.
The exhibition then moves on to the match itself. You can see the
pieces used, some tickets from the match, a spoon designed to
commemorate the match in the shape of a chess piece. There are also
postcards with the final position of each game displayed as a graphic
and with the official Icelandic stamp designed to commemorate the
event imprinted on them. There are also some Icelandic stamps with a
Bobby Fischer portrait on them and a couple of other portraits of the
players looking thoughtful and sitting at the board.
Unfortunately for a visually impaired person all of this material is
locked away in cabinets, and the hotel staff were not willing to
unlock these cabinets for me. However they were prepared to lift the
cover off the table and board actually used for the match. The chairs
used by both players are also present, and there are three pictures of
me sitting in one of these chairs and with my hands on the board
(autographed by both Fischer and Spassky). This was, from a purely
personal point of view, the highlight of the exhibition.
The exhibition finishes with a brief mention of the grant of Icelandic
citizenship to Fischer in 2005; you can see the text of the official
letter. It rather glosses over the controversies surrounding the
reasons for Fischer’s application for Icelandic citizenship; for
example the sighted guide with me didn’t make mention of Fischer’s
rather appalling comments on the attack on the World Trade Centre.
There is a picture of Fischer walking in the rift valley where the
Eurasian and North American tectonic plates on which Iceland rests are
moving apart. Finally the exhibition mentions Fischer’s burial place
in the Laugardalur church at Selfoss (as it happens, the group I was
with drove passed this, but because we were an hour behind due to a
tyre burst we didn’t get a chance to stop and take a look).
Overall being able to get to this exhibition was one of the highlights
of a great holiday for me. It was very disappointing that I couldn’t
find any kind of memento of the match to buy in Reykjavik; I had to go
looking on ebay where there are some of the postcards for sale (I
should confess I am something of a sucker for that sort of thing).
There is actually some controversy surrounding this topic. Someone had
suggested putting some sort of tourist centre at Selfoss, but this was
opposed by local people on the grounds that Fischer came to Selfos to
find peace and it would be an intrusion; you can understand this,
particularly as there would be a risk that any tourist centre near to
the grave would intrude on other people using the church as a place of
worship. However I was slightly disappointed (and given the state of
Iceland’s economy, surprised) that there wasn’t anything to take away
from the exhibition itself, even if the photos I mentioned earlier
will be something to treasure.
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