Author: Chuck Grau

A beautiful, cleverly simple plastic set.

The set’s original box indicates that it was manufactured in Dnepropetrovsk (since 2016 simply Dnipro), the fourth largest city in Ukraine, with about one million inhabitants, located in east central Ukraine, about 400 km southeast of Kyiv. I use the term Rocket City because Dnepropetrovsk was the center of Soviet strategic rocket development and manufacture. I use the term Molodets in reference to Toronto-based artist and collector Alan Power’s description of the king’s similarity to a particular Soviet ICBM, the RT-23 Molodets, which translates to Brave Man or Fine Fellow. Its NATO designation was the SS-24 Scalpel. Alan owns and operates The Chess Schach, where he artistically restores vintage sets, many of them Soviet, and provides both set specific commentary and related essays.

I date my specimen from an inspection stamp found inside the set’s box.

Original boxes accompanying sets are important sources of data on the sets’ dating and manufacturer. They more frequently are found with plastic sets than with wooden ones, which typically are paired with wooden box/boards that may or may not be original to the sets they accompany.

Alan Power describes the graphic on the top of the box as follows: “It has the words ‘CHESS’ at the top and bottom and DNEPROPETROVSK to the right of the illustration, depicting war machines (a tank and a rocket being launched) and a statue of a cosmonaut reaching up into space. The words ‘Plant DNEPROPLASTMASS’ appear at the bottom of the label. Unfortunately, the ‘цена’ (‘price’) is left blank.” Here is the bottom of the label from my set, which extends to the side of the box’s top.

The clever simplicity of the set lies in its redundancy, its repeated use of the same parts to construct different pieces. The bases and stems of the king, queen, and bishops are identical. Only the crowns and miter distinguish them. The bottom portions of the king and queen crowns are identical. The top portions of their respective crowns vary to identify them. The king’s crown bears an opposite-colored conical top, identical in shape to that of the bishop, but of a different color, and set in a crown, whereas the conical piece in the bishop sits directly atop the stem. The shape of the king’s crown echoes the structure of the Molodets ICBM. The top of the queen’s crown is likewise opposite-colored, but is dome-shaped rather than conical.

In similar fashion, the rook and pawn share identical bases. Again, it is their tops which identify and distinguish them. Atop the rook sits a turret that is none other than the same part used for the bottom portions of the royal crowns. Atop the pawn rests the same dome used to distinguish the king from the queen, but of the same color as the pawn’s base, whereas for the queen, the dome is opposite-colored. Alan Power suggests the dome shapes allude to the Soviet Sputnik satellite.

It is not at all surprising that the Soviets would incorporate stylistic elements reminiscent of icons of Soviet achievements like the Sputnik satellite or the Molodets ICBM, for it was common practice for them to use art to glorify the successes of Soviet socialism, and to name places and things after heroes of the Revolution or Soviet socialism. It is also consistent with the theory and practice of Socialist Realism, the theory of art formally sanctioned by the Soviet State in 1934, which, simply put, mandated the use of “realist styles to create highly optimistic depictions of Soviet life.”

Dnepropetrovsk Proplastymass manufactured the Molodets set in other colors. Here is one in chocolate and white.

This beautiful set from the Soviet Union’s Rocket City is an echo chamber of form and color so clever it could have been designed by a rocket scientist. In the tradition of Socialist Realism, the Molodets set pays homage to the Soviet Union’s military and scientific rocketry by incorporating design elements reminiscent of the RT-23 ICBM and the Sputnik satellite.

Collectors typically study photographs of events to help them determine what type of pieces they have in their collections, when they were used, in which events, and by which players. Sometimes, however, they discover pieces in photographs of which they have not seen surviving examples, launching them on a quest to find them. So it is with the chessmen appearing on the cover of the Cadogan and Everyman paperback editions of former World Champion Mikhail Tal’s autobiography, The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal.

The book’s cover bears a photo of Tal contemplating his position after Black’s 32nd move in Tal v. Krogius, played in the 30th Soviet Championship in Yerevan in 1962, a Ruy Lopez won by Tal. These chess pieces comprise one of three sets Portuguese collector Arlindo Vieira described as “Utopia” in his 2012 video on Soviet and Russian chess sets. Collectors of Soviet chessmen have come to call them “Tal Pieces” in homage to the former World Champion’s connection to them in this photo.

The photographic record of the Tal chess pieces strongly suggests that they originated in the pre-Annexation Baltic states around 1940, most probably Estonia, but then evolved stylistically, and migrated to a new home in Georgia SSR in the fifties, where they remained in use until at least 1979.

The pieces largely follow neoclassical Staunton conventions, while also incorporating certain Soviet design elements, the combination of which collectors have come to call Soviet Stauntons. Among the traditional Staunton elements present in Soviet Stauntons are: relatively wide bases that incorporate a step as they rise to meet the stem; vertical stems that rise from the bases’ steps with a bottom diameter appreciably less than that of the base; stems that taper as they ascend to form a largely vertical segment and intersect the pedestal at a distinct, perpendicular or near-perpendicular joint; upon the pedestal rests a piece signifier resembling the symbolic representation of the piece in chess diagrams; which is offset from the circumference of the pedestal and connected by a connecting section defined by two collars resembling the rims of crowns or miters (together with the pedestal the two collars of the connector are often referred to as a “three collar structure”); the king’s signifier often incorporates a cross-like finial; the queen wears a coronet; the bishop’s miter often bears a cut; and the rook’s turret typically contains merlons; when arrayed on their starting squares the pieces resemble a series of columns supporting a triangular pediment. The shape of the knight’s back approximates the S curve characteristic of Staunton knights.

Among the typically Soviet design elements of Soviet Stauntons are the opposite colors of the king, queen, and bishop finials; the modification of the king’s cross to one not quite recognized by Christian iconography; and, with one notable exception, a knight not patterned after the Elgin Marbles. Among the features that distinguish the Tal set are the hefty wide and tall bases; the thick rook towers; the crisply carved angled merlons; the squat pawns; and the jaunty knights, which appear to lean backwards with their heads tilted up toward the sky. The traditional and idiosyncratically Soviet elements of Soviet Stauntons are illustrated above.

The origins of the design have been a matter of some interest. Based on his extensive review of photographs from Georgia SSR and elsewhere, American collector Ron Harrison has suggested that the design is Georgian in origin. To be sure most of the photos of the sets in use from the fifties, sixties, and seventies were shot in or nearby Georgia. My own research, however, suggests that the set originated in the Baltic states, where it appears in the photographic record as early as Spring 1940, notwithstanding its later ubiquity in Georgia.

The photo above shows Paul Keres and Vladas Mikenas playing in a match between Estonia and Lithuania held in Tallinn prior to the annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union later in 1940.

A specimen of this set from the collection of Mike Ladzinski is shown below. Ladzinski obtained his set from a Lithuanian dealer in 2019. Lacking several elements of the mature Tal design of Yerevan 1962, these chessmen adopt traditional elements of the English Staunton design, most notably the long stems narrower at the top than the bottom; the distinctly jointed pedestals, the three-ring collar system, the cross-crowned king, the bishop miter cuts, the merlons of the rook turrets, and the collective column-pediment. Unlike traditional Stauntons, the crosses and finials are opposite-colored. The unique, jaunty knights do not emulate the Elgin Marbles in realism or detail, but are very close in design to those of the 1959 Tbilisi and 1962 Yerevan sets. The pieces contain the wide, almost squared-off bases characteristic of the mature sets, but not yet as tall. The cross is a true cross, not the quasi-cross of the 1962 set. While the rooks’ turrets incorporate merlons, their towers are noticeably narrower than their successor’s, and concave rather than the straight Tbilisi and Yerevan towers. The pawns’ stems are longer than the late versions, making the pawns less squat.

Shortly after the Second World War, Tal sets were used in a simultaneous exhibition that Estonian great Paul Keres played with players from the crew of the Soviet battleship October Revolution when it docked in Tallinn in 1946. The pieces in the following two photos seem to have evolved. The bases appear thicker, the pawns stubbier, and the rook stems thicker and straighter.

Over the next few years, the pieces continued to be used in the then-annexed Baltic states and in nearby Leningrad, as the following three photos indicate. In these photos, the pieces can be seen evolving towards their 1962 form, with widened, straightened rook towers and stouter pawns. The first photo depicts Akaki Pirtskhalava and Alexander Tolush playing in the match between Leningrad and Georgia in the 1948 USSR Team Championship. The tournament was held in Vilnius, Lithuania.

The second photo documents a game between Viktor Korchnoi and Vasily Smyslov playing in the 1951 Mikhail Chigorin Memorial tournament, held in Leningrad.

In the third photo, Vytautas Landsbergis and Tigran Petrosian are seen playing in the 1951 Lithuanian Championship, held in Vilnius, Lithuania.

By the late fifties, use of these pieces migrated to Georgia SSR, where they became very popular, and used in major tournaments there and nearby Yerevan for decades. It was in Georgia that they likely evolved into the form seen on the cover of Tal’s biography, complete with the taller bases and stout pawns with very short stems. The next three photos show the Tal pieces in use in Georgia from 1959 to 1979.

The next photo shows in great detail the Tal set used in the 1959 USSR Championship held in Tbilisi, Georgia SSR. The pieces have reached their mature form, with stout bases, extraordinarily squat pawns, and chunkier, less tubular knights than in the original Tallinn version of the set. The photo depicts the pieces at use in Tigran Petrosian’s game against Yuri Averbakh, a Najdorf Sicilian Defense won by Petrosian, who won the game and the championship.

The next two photos depict original Tal pieces like those shown in the photos above from the 1959 Soviet Championship in Tbilisi. Whereas the pieces in the photos appear to be natural and black, these originals are natural and a very dark brown. The finials on the dark pieces are painted rather than finished natural wood.

Although photos have emerged purporting to show a surviving set of pieces like those used in Yerevan, 1962, there is no evidence corroborating the pieces’ authenticity, and at least one collector and dealer from Kyiv believes the pieces are modern reproductions.

Tal pieces continued in front line service until at least 1979 but were largely displaced as pieces of Soviet Championships by another Soviet Staunton design, the so-called Grandmaster 3 design, after the 1962 Championship in Yerevan. They enjoyed a long and storied existence on the front stages of Soviet chess at the apex of its dominance, beginning with their appearance in Tallinn in 1940 to their popularity in Georgia SSR in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Tied to the ever-popular World Champion Mikhail Tal by the cover of his autobiography, the Tal pieces remain a favorite to collectors of Soviet chess sets.

_{A version of this article is appearing in a forthcoming issue of Chess Collector International Magazine.}

One of the most interesting sets in my Soviet collection comprises what I call the “Cannon Rook” pieces, a non-Staunton design characterized by its unusual rooks, represented not by the traditional towers, but by cannons mounted on stems above bases.

The pieces present an overall conical impression, tapering from bottom to top without distinct base and stem sections. The piece signifiers share a common theme—a bullet-shaped cap, mostly in red for both sides, but with some varnished in natural wood. The king is 107 mm tall with a base of 37 mm. Its crown consists of two parts–a colored cone situated within a ring of saw-toothed points. The queen has a rhyming structure, but instead of a cone her crown inlay consists of a tear-shape atop a disc-shaped pedestal. The tear-shape also appears atop the bishop and the pawn. The knights are nicely carved with large, prominent teeth like those found in other late Tsarist and early Soviet knights, and resemble other well-carved knights thought to be made by Artel Kultsport. The pieces are nicely weighted and felted with patterned cotton cloth.

Moscow’s Russia Chess House, from whom I acquired it, dated the set as late 19th century, but I think this is too early. The design appears in the photographic record in 1935, which I think much closer to its time of origin owing to the “Kultsport” knights and the nature and condition of the varnish finish. Here is a photo said by St. Petersburg collector Sergey Kovalenko to be from the Leningrad region in 1935.

I know of three sets that share this basic design. Of a somewhat smaller set, noted German collector Holger Langer writes: “An unusual Soviet chess set with unusual rooks, probably made in the 1920’s or 1930’s. The pieces are made of wood and are moderately weighted. King height is 9.85 cm or 3.85″. The white side is covered with the usual reddish-brown varnish often seen in Soviet sets. The black side is covered with a black lacquer. The kings with a very pronounced crown and hat in green color with a red finial, the queens of almost equal height but with a red ball inside the crown with a red disc and a small ball finial on top (the black queen with some damage, unfortunately). The rooks are extremely unusual in that they are shown as cannons mounted on a circular pedestal. The knights as carved horses’ heads of typical Russian or early Soviet shape. The bishops with a long cone shaped corpus and a green colored pointed finial. The pawns also with a smaller cone shaped corpus and a colored drop finial (in red for the white side and in brown for the black side).”

Of the second similar set, artistically restored by The Chess Schach, artist Alan Power writes: “Militibus ex Antiquis Ruthenorum (Old Russian Warriors), 32 heavily-weighted chessmen without board, wood, white v. red, Soviet (post Revolution era), circa 1920 – 1930 Height: King 10cm, weight 55g, base width 3.8cm, Queen 9.2cm, Bishop 9cm, Knights 8/7.5cm, Rook 5.8cm, Pawn 5.8cm. W: red felt bases B: black felt bases.

“An extremely rare set of Soviet chessmen (most probably hand-turned for personal use or as a gift, perhaps). It came to me in pretty poor condition; two of the Knights muzzles have been repaired and two Bishop mitres and five pawn caps (I’ve lost track of which pawns) have been replaced. There is also a certain amount of ‘head-bowing,’ also called stooping or leaning amongst the pieces, which adds overall character, therefore, it has been left as is. A few ‘battle-scars’ have also been left here and there for the same reason.” Unlike the Langer and Grau specimens, the Chess Schach rooks are traditional towers, not cannons mounted on bases. The knights are more delicately and intricately carved.

The third specimen is the most intriguing. According to a well-regarded collector who goes by the penname Schachkunst BL on Facebook, Stalin presented Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) with it as a gift. The set made its way into the hands of Turkish Master Halil Sertac Dalkiran (b. 1955), who displayed it in a chess museum he opened in Istanbul.

Indeed, a photograph of a Soviet Cannon Rook set appears on the cover of Dalkiran’s 1995 book Chess Training Method, as posted on Facebook by Moscow collector Alex Chelnokov.

According to Schachkunst, Dalkiran’s museum closed in 2008. The whereabouts of the Atatürk set are unknown as of this writing.

The cannon is an important part of Russian cultural heritage. We are all familiar with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, commemorating the successful defense of the Motherland from Napoleon’s invading armies, and the rousing cannonade of its finale. Less well-known in the West is the massive Tsar Cannon, cast in bronze in 1586 by the master caster Andrey Chokhov and displayed on the grounds of the Kremlin in Moscow.

The set’s likely origin in the early 1930s came at a time of great experimentation in Soviet chess design, much of it challenging central Neoclassical elements of the Victorian Staunton design. Some games sought to displace classical chess. One such game was Victrix, as explained by Moscow Chess Museum Curator Dmitry Oleynikov: “The revolutionary changes in the world of the 1920s gave rise to attempts to ‘revolutionize’ the old war game, and not only by depriving it of its ‘monarchist’ regalia.” Advertisements described Victrix as “An exciting new game of chess pieces on a board of 100 squares. In addition to the usual figures, new figures MACHINE GUN, PLANE AND TANK are participating! Anyone who knows the rules of an ordinary chess game very soon, at once, LEARNS THE MOVES OF NEW FIGURES!” While Victrix did not include a Cannon piece, it does evidence a willingness to experiment with the identity of the playing pieces, and its Machine Gun bears an eerie resemblance to the Cannon Rooks of the c. 1935 set.

Elements of the crown structures can be seen echoed in other Soviet sets. The first is from my collection, a diminutive Constructivist-influenced set from the 1920s or thirties, where the king’s crown is reminiscent of that in the Cannon Rook set.

The second set resides in the collection of New York collector Eduardo Bauza. The royals’ crowns in this set beautifully restored by Ron Fromkin echo those of the Cannon Rook set.

Finally, the king’s crown of the c. 1980 Minsk Olympic Commemorative set recall those of the much earlier Cannon Rook set.

The fascinating design of the wonderful Cannon Rook pieces well reflects the creativity of Soviet chess design in the 1930s and its challenge to Neoclassical Staunton design. Elements of the Cannon Rook set’s design can be found in other Soviet sets spanning the decades.

Berlin Artist Porat Jacobson has designed and produced an original Soviet chess set design melding design concepts spanning six centuries. The pieces are inspired by at least four sets. The knight derives from one found from a Novgorod set of early 15th Century Rus.

The King and Queen are inspired by those of the Smyslov set of the 1920s and 1930s, as are the pawns. Perhaps the most striking feature of the Smyslov design is the dendriform structure of the stems, an Modernist architectural feature found in Frank Lloyd Wright’s dendriformic columns in the S.C. Johnson office building in Racine, Wisconsin USA and in Moscow’s Stalin Award-winning Kropotkinskaya Metro Station.

Porat’s pawns echo the Smyslov pawns while exaggerating the ovoid shape of their heads.

The Smyslova Rook is inspired by those of the Soviet Upright (fka Averbakh II) set of the 1930s and 1940s.

The bishop is inspired by another undetermined set, but incorporates the Smyslov’s dendriformic stem. Porat melds the ideas borrowed from these disparate Soviet sets with rhyming bases and dendriformic stems (“set identifiers” in Mike Darlow’s parlance).

The Smyslova set manifests Porat’s theory that Soviets had a “toolbox” of ideas from which they drew in different combinations and variations. It also illustrates his corollary that knights in Soviet sets are largely fungible. Different styles of knights can pair equally well with the same set; the same style knight can pair equally well with multiple sets.

The Smyslova is the inaugural set of Porat’s new venture, Jacobson Handmade Chess Sets. We can’t wait to see what else he has in store.

Having examined Arlindo Vieira’s groundbreaking work, I turn now to a survey of major tournament sets. I begin with an examination of sets used in significant events from 1914 to 1941. My goal is to provide a quick identification guide to the new collector or student of Soviet designs, and a bit of information about them to help further study or appreciation of these sets.

Pieces from the 1909 & 1914 St. Petersburg Tournaments: Late Tsarist Karelian Birch Chessmen

The last major tournament of the Tsarist era was played in St. Petersburg in 1914. Participants included World Champion Lasker, Capablanca (the winner), Alekhine, Tarrasch, Marshall, Nimzovich, Rubenstein, Janowski, Bernstein, Blackburne, and others. Here is a photo of the 1914 Tournament and some of its illustrious participants, together with two magnified and enhanced close-ups of the pieces used.

The photographic record above establishes that pieces like these were used in the famous 1914 St. Petersburg Tournament. Usually referred to as “Karelian Birch” pieces, the set is named for the wood from which they are turned, characterized by its uniquely bold figure and found only in the Karelian Peninsula north of St. Petersburg. Staunton features predominate, though an opposite colored finial replaces the king’s crown, and the queen’s orb is also changed to the opposite color. In some sets, the king’s finial is made of bone; in others, wood. In some sets the king’s finial is replaced with a demi-orb. The cuts in the bishop’s miter are usually asymmetrical, but those in the pictured set are symmetrical. The unusual crown of the king hearkens to those found in some Austrian sets. The sets came in various sizes. Known specimens include 3.75″, 4.00″, and 4.25″ kings. The pictured set’s kings are 3.75″.

Pieces from the 1925 First Moscow International Tournament

Once Soviet authorities decided chess was going to be an instrument of state policy intended both to raise the cultural level of the masses to define an area of cultural competition where they intended to “meet and exceed” the West, they decided to hold an international tournament in Moscow to measure where Soviet players stood in relation to those of the West. Scholar Michael Hudson terms this program “Political Chess.”

While there are a handful of photos, some taken from the film Chess Fever, which starred no less than Jose Raul Capablanca and other participants of the tournament, collectors have not identified a surviving example of the set. The photos themselves are somewhat unclear as to the set. Here is a well-known photo from the event and a close-up of the pieces in it.

The pieces are Staunton in style and proportion, with stepped-up bases, distinct pedestals, “triple collars,” a cross atop the king’s crown, a crenellated coronet, and distinct merlons in the rooks’ turrets. The pieces are probably from the late Tsarist period because during the preceding years, two revolutions and a civil war impeded both the development of Soviet style and the production of new chess sets.

1933 Botvinnik-Flohr I (“BFI”) Chess Pieces

Continuing to pursue their program of meeting and exceeding the West, Soviet chess officials arranged a 1933 match between their most promising player, Mikhail Botvinnik and Salo Flohr, who was then considered to be a world championship contender and perhaps the strongest player in the world. The match was played in Leningrad and Moscow and ended in a draw.

Here is a photo of the pieces used that appeared on the cover of the match book authored by Botvinnik.

Although the available photos from the event are few in number, and somewhat ambiguous as to the size and style of the pieces, the pieces in the photo appear to bear many similarities to those in the photos from the 1925 First Moscow International. No surviving examples are known.

Unfortunately, the pieces pictured below were thought to be the same as the match pieces, and are commonly called “BFI” pieces. Ongoing review of the photos of the event have convinced me and other collectors that this name is mistaken for these pieces, even though they share some design features with the set actually used in the 1933 match.

However, a set in the collection of Antonio Fabiano is very close in style to that of the 1933 match. Its main deviation from the match set are the concave walls of its rooks’ towers, which appear straight in photos of the match. Here is his set.

In these pieces, we begin to see the development of a distinct Soviet style, despite the diminutive cross upon the king. The stepped-up base of the Staunton base has largely disappeared. The stems are noticeably concave, and mirror modernist dendriform columns rather than the neoclassical columns incorporated by Staunton sets. While the queen’s crown retains crenels on her coronet and the rook its merlons, the bishop’s miter has lost its cut. The knights make no attempt to copy the Elgin Marbles as Staunton knights do. Its snout is elongated, its mouth toothy, its eyes oversized, combining to form a very expressive visage.

Soldiers of International Competition 1934-36: Botvinnik-Flohr II (BFII”) Pieces

The next major events held in pursuit of the Soviets’ program of Political Chess were the 1934 Leningrad Masters Tournament, the 1935 Second Moscow International Tournament, and the 1936 Third Moscow International Tournament, all of which pitted the top Soviet players against fields of top Western players, including three then or future world champions Lasker, Capablanca, and Euwe.

A new set design appeared in these tournaments, perhaps the most iconic Soviet chess pieces of all, which we have come to call Botvinnik-Flohr II pieces, BFII for short. In evolving variations, they were used at the highest levels of Soviet chess from the 1930s to the 1960s, including the three mentioned events of 1934, 1935, and 1936, multiple Soviet Championships from 1937 to 1957, and the 1956 Moscow Olympiad. World Champions Lasker, Capablanca, Euwe, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, and Fischer all played with pieces of this style.

Pieces like these were used in the 1934 Leningrad and 1935 and 1936 Moscow International tournaments, and a number of USSR Championships in the late 1930s and 1940s. The following specimen is from the collection of Singapore collector Stephen Kong.

The set acquires its name from the two players who shared first place in the 1935 affair, Mikhail Botvinnik and Salo Flohr, ahead of former world champions Lasker (third) and Capablanca (fourth). It was with pieces like these that the famous Mop the Floor game was played between Botvinnik and Flohr in the 1936 tournament. The II designation distinguishes these pieces from those used in the Botvinnik-Flohr match of 1933 (BFI pieces). Until the differences between the pieces used in the 1933 match and the other events were rediscovered in 2017, collectors and manufacturers of reproductions had confounded them.

The pieces pictured above were turned and carved in Leningrad at the Prometheus Cultural Goods factory on Krestovsky Island, according to a stamp in the accompanying red-stained wood box. An identical set housed in an identical box with the same Prometheus stamp also bears a 1935 or 1936 date stamp, depending on how you interpret the smudged final digit of the stamp. The style of these pieces differs noticeably from that of traditional English Staunton in several respects. First, the king is not topped with a same-color cross, but a secular, opposite-color finial. While the bishop’s miter at first included a cut in the Staunton tradition, it soon disappeared in subsequent versions.

Tal Pieces of the 1940 Estonia-Lithuania Friendship Match

The earliest known example of the so-called Tal set is seen in photo of Paul Keres and Mikenas in a match between Estonia and Lithuania held in Tallinn, Estonia prior to the annexation of the Baltic states by the Soviet Union later in 1940. The set derives its name from a photo of Tal playing at the 1962 USSR Championship in Yerevan with a later version of the set. The photo appears on the cover of Tal’s autobiography, The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal.

A specimen of this set resides in the collection of Mike Ladzinski.

These chessmen adopt traditional elements of the English Staunton design, most notably the long stems narrower at the top than the bottom; the distinctly jointed pedestals, the three-ring collar system, the cross-crowned king, the bishop miter cuts, the merlons of the rook turrets, and the collective column-pediment. Unlike traditional Stauntons, the crosses and finials are opposite-colored. The unique, jaunty knights do not emulate the Elgin Marbles but are virtually identical to those of the 1962 Yerevan set. The pieces contain the wide, almost squared-off bases characteristic of the Tal, but not yet as tall as those of the Yerevan set. The cross is a true cross, not the vestigial cross of the 1962 version. While the rooks’ turrets incorporate merlons, their towers are noticeably narrower than their successor’s, and concave rather than straight, like the Yerevan tower. The pawns’ stems are longer than in later versions, making the pawns less squat.

1941 Leningrad Championship Pieces

The BFII design evolved through the late thirties, the forties, and the fifties, with multiple variants existing side-by-side over the years. One notable variant was used in the 1941 Leningrad Championship, which was begun during the Siege of Leningrad but was never completed.

The pieces have retained their general shapes and proportions, as well as the crenellations on queens and rooks. The bishop’s miter, however, had grown rounded and lost its miter cut. This BFII variant is notable for the mortar work carved into the rooks’ walls.

Hopefully, the collector or student of Soviet chess sets now has some basic information to help identify these sets and when, where, and by whom they were used.