Why do Russians love chess so much?

Slavs doing salvs things

>>78296992
They didn't have nintendo at the time but I'm sure it's all changed now.

massive state sponsorship of chess during the soviet era in an attempt to prove intellectual superiority over the west. since then it's just a cultural thing

>>78296992
I assumed it was just played throughout the USSR because of boredom and eventually lots got good. All the chess champions seem to come from Russia or Armenia or Azerbaijan, former Soviet places.

>>78297088
This

>>78297097
And also this, although chess has been a tradition in some of those areas for centuries.