Russia is no stranger to singular poisonings. State agents have been known to use everything from Tea mixed with polonium toward The deadly nerve agent “novichok” by carrying out assassination attempts against defectors in the United Kingdom and Domestic political rivals like Alexei NavalnyBut a new “first” in the long history of poisonings broke this month in the Russian republic of Dagestan, where a 40-something chess player named Amina Abakarova allegedly tried to poison a rival by placing liquid mercury on and around her chessboard.
Malcolm Pein, Director of International Chess at the English Chess Federation, He told the UK’s Telegraph “I’ve never seen anything like this before… It’s the first recorded case of someone using a toxic substance, as far as I know, in the history of chess.” Usually, he said, chess opponents limit themselves to “psychological” tactics.
Oliver Carroll, Ukraine war correspondent for The Economist, summed up the situation with some sarcasm on social media“I know that by Russian doping standards it’s probably only a 7 out of 10. But still…”
Mercury near the Caspian Sea
The strange story began on August 2, when a regional chess tournament was being held in Makhachkala, a Russian city on the Caspian Sea just north of Azerbaijan. Telegram Channel The emergency services of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Dagestan were called after 30-year-old Umayganat Osmanova fell ill during a game of chess.
Osmanova said she had seen small grey or silver “beads” rolling out from under her side of the chessboard, but apparently this did not seem strange to her until she started feeling unwell. History of Chess.com Osmanova translated some of the young woman’s statements about what happened. “I still feel bad,” she said. “In the first few minutes I felt short of breath and a taste of iron in my mouth. I had to spend about five hours on this board. I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t seen her before.”
These symptoms are consistent with exposure to elemental mercury, the liquid or “quicksilver” version of mercury sometimes used in thermometers. Cleveland ClinicThis form of mercury is “usually harmless if you touch it or ingest it because its slippery texture is not absorbed through the skin or intestines.” But if you do inhale some mercury, be careful: Symptoms appear “immediately” and can include coughing, shortness of breath, nausea, bleeding gums and a “metallic taste in the mouth.”
Tournament officials consulted security camera footage, in which they saw Abakarova walking through a nearly empty room of chess tables about 20 minutes before play was set to begin (in a press article, Abakarova had been casually asking beforehand whether there were such cameras in place). In the footage, Abakarova allegedly walked up to a particular table, pulled a small vial from her bag, and appeared to smear something on the pieces and the table itself.
The security camera footage was soon posted online and you can now… Watch it on YouTube.
Sazhid Sazhidov, the Minister of Sports of the Republic of Dagestan, published a Note for Telegram after footage of the incident began circulating, claiming that “a multiple winner of these competitions, Amina Abakarova from Makhachkala, treated the table on which her opponent, the no less titled European Champion Umayganat Osmanova from Kaspiysk, was to play, with an unknown substance which, as it later turned out, were mercury compounds.”