Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 33. Chapters: Babrak Karmal, Kazimir Malevich, Mstislav Rostropovich, Mikhail Botvinnik, Viktor Chernomyrdin, Georgy Arbatov, Aleksandr Abdulov, Dmitri Volkogonov, Oleg Yankovsky, Sergey Kuryokhin, Andrey Dostoyevsky, Alexander Gomelsky, Gennadi Strekalov, Olga Ivinskaya, Igor Sergeyev, Valeri Broshin, Valentina Tolkunova, Marie-Clotilde-Elisabeth Louise de Riquet, comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau, Natalia Bessmertnova, Galina Dzhugashvili, Ilya Kormiltsev, Pavel Sadyrin, Valery Kokov, Aleksandr Sevidov, Anna Samokhina, Dan Iosif, Yury Artyukhin, Lev Dyomin, Viktor Bortsov. Excerpt: Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. (, pronounced ) (August 17 1911 - May 5, 1995) was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while playing top-class competitive chess. He also developed a chess-playing algorithm that tried to "think" like a top human player, but this approach has been superseded by a brute-force search strategy that exploits the rapid increase in the calculation speed of modern computers. Botvinnik was the first world-class player to develop within the Soviet Union (Alekhine was a top player before the Russian Revolution), putting him under political pressure but also giving him considerable influence within Soviet chess. From time to time he was accused of using that influence to his own advantage, but the evidence is unclear and some suggest he resisted attempts by Soviet officials to intimidate some of his rivals. Botvinnik also played a major role in the organization of chess, making a significant contribution to the design of the World Chess Championship system after World War II and becoming a leading member of the coaching system that enabled...