Ludmila Belavenets with Sergey Yanovsky and Vladimir Barsky

Ludmila Belavenets (1940-2021) dedicated her life to chess: she won Soviet and Moscow women’s chess championships and became women’s world correspondence chess champion in 1992. Ludmila seconded Alla Kushnir at three world championship matches against Nona Gaprindashvili and spent decades as a leading chess coach of the USSR and then Russia. Her most successful pupils included grandmasters Morozevich, Sokolov, Oparin, and Vyzmanavin.