A big boost for Go in Bulgaria was the opening of the first ever “Chess and Go Club Vesselin Topalov” on December 22 2005. The club took its name from Grand Master Topalov, who became the first Bulgarian to win the world chess champion title in Argentina earlier that year. Topalov personally attended club’s opening ceremony at the William Gladstone school in Sofia. The school is famous in Sofia for teaching Asian languages such as Japanese, Chinese, Iranian and Arabic.

The initiative for the new club came from one of the school’s pupils, Radostin Petrov, who wrote to Topalov with his idea. The warm welcome that Topalov received at the opening by hundreds of children and parents showed that chess and Go have a bright future in Bulgaria and as the great champion said, describing the secret of his success: “practice makes perfect”.  The club received support from the Japanese and Iranian ambassadors in Sofia, Koichiro Fukui and Fereydoun Haqbin who donated chess and Go boards to the club. A demonstration of Go was held, between a representative from the Japanese embassy and Emil Ivanov, chairman of the newly founded club.  The club will also be a meeting place for the National Movement “Checkmate for drug addiction and violence in Bulgarian schools”.



From 'Time to Go' by Petar Kostadinov , The Sofia Echo, 12.01.2006

note: the text in the progress.