Extraordinary Photos From History Explained

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Knight to E-5

Openculture

This is a photo of a chess match played outdoors by two chess masters Peter Romanovsky and Ilya Rabinovich in 1924. They called in their moves over the telephone, and then the chess pieces, which were actual human beings and horses, moved across a huge chess board that covered Palace Square in Leningrad (now, St. Petersburg). Members of the Red Army served as the black pieces, while the Soviet Navy were the white. The five-hour match was an annual event, aimed at promoting chess in the USSR.