7 June 2015
75th Anniversary of Liudmila Belavenets
World Correspondence Chess Champion and famous trainer celebrated her birthday on June 7.
Daughter of master Sergey Belavenets, one of the most talented chess players of his generation, Liudmila Belavenets was born a year before the Great War. Her father died in battle in 1942. Liudmila has no recollections of him, of course, but she remembers him all her life. She even chose her field of work in his honor.
At the age of 15 Luidmila Belavenets became a first category player and qualified for the Moscow Women Championship. Four years later she played in the USSR Women Championship for the first time. Her debut was quite satisfactory, and her main achievement came in 1975, when she won the USSR championship in Frunze.
She was a Moscow champion and participated in an interzonal tournament, but her biggest accomplishments came in correspondence chess. Already in 1965 she participated in the first individual women world championship, and in 1990 became the World Correspondence Champion. She also won three Correspondence Chess Olympiads with USSR.
However, not only sporting achievement made Luidmila Belavenets so famous in our country. In 1973, more than 40 year ago, she started training young chess players at the Young Pioneers Stadium, invited by famous coach Vladimir Yurkov. Soon she became one of the best junior trainers in the country, and perhaps the most recognized one, thanks to hosting the TV show “Chess School”. Hundreds of thousands of people learned chess from those broadcasts. Among her most famous individual students are grandmasters Alexey Vyzhmanavin, Andrey Sokolov, and Alexander Morozevich.
Luidmila Sergeevna is known for her amazing ability to find the right approach to every student. She is a natural born teacher, very talented and wise person, and she continues to train new generations of chess players. Many of her former students are World, European, and Russian champions, grandmasters and masters, chess professionals, coaches, and journalists, but even those who decided to pursue careers other than chess, have very fond memories of her lessons.
Liudmila Sergeevna Belavenets continues to work as a chess trainer in SDYUSSHOR “Youth of Moscow” in the Petrosian Club.
We congratulate Liudmila Sergeevna with her anniversary, wish her excellent health, new creative achievements, and many talented students!
