It was inevitable. A millionaire Russian politician who claims to have been abducted by aliens, and also happens to be president of the World Chess Federation, has offered $10 million to buy the site of the proposed Cordoba House Muslim cultural center in downtown Manhattan. Like we said, inevitable.Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of the Kalmykia region of Russia and also president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), has written letters to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Hisham Elzanaty, an investor in the Park51 site, offering to buy the property for $10 million and erect an International Chess Center there. “[we] hope that this proposal will prove the optimal solution and resolve the controversy that has caused such disquiet across the world,” Ilyumzhinov wrote. Ilyumzhinov figures that chess is uniquely suited to solving this particular conflict:
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=121007