Ostap Bender
Chess City (also referred to as City-Chess; "Siti-Chess" or "Gorod Shakhmat") is a large complex devoted to chess and chess competitions located east of Elista, Kalmykia, in Russia. The neighborhood-size development consists of a central, four-story domed City Chess Hall surrounded by an Olympic-style village of Californian-Mediterranean Revival Style architecture. The site has a conference center, public swimming pool and a museum of Kalmyk Buddhist art. The complex features sculptures and artwork devoted to chess, including a statue of Ostap Bender, a fictional character of popular books written by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov, who proposed the creation of a world chess capital. The complex has been used to host visiting dignitaries like the Dalai Lama.