The current FIDE president claims FIDE is in a great shape financially. This
 wasn't always the case as many Chess players know. Even now with FIDE
 spending $6,500,000 for the world championship - The women's
 candidates tournament was scrapping the total of 40,000 Swiss Francs
 ($25,000). Even a friendly tournament for journalist was financed by FIDE with $50,000. 
 It clearly shows the disrespect for women's chess. One thing is encouraging though, the
 prize for the title match (Karpov - Anand) was about 4 times the FIDE
 minimum. If the women's prize gets the same treatment, it will reach $800,000.
 We at CompChess are trying to seek sponsorship for at least $1,000,000 for the title match.

 Mr. Ilijumzhinov wants Chess to succeed like Tennis. ...well in Tennis, in most
 tournaments, the prizes are equal for both genders.

          The financial situation of FIDE was unclear and the number of sponsors for
            chess events was dwindling. Not even the gracious Mr. Van Oosterom was
            showing much enthusiasm anymore. Unfortunately, Mr. Van Oosterom had
            suffered a stroke back in 1993. He has made a good recovery since, and I
            sincerely hope, as does anyone who knows this man, that he’ll continue
            toward a full recovery.

            There was not much hope to find sponsors in Hungary. The Hungarian chess
            authorities were neither making any effort to try to find a sponsor for the
            match, nor giving Zsuzsa any meaningful support in her quest for the title.
            Their basic approach was that the Polgar family is wealthy enough and
            should support the federation. At least they couldn’t do harm anymore.

            The chess Olympiad that was originally planned for Greece in December
            1994 took a detour to Moscow. Many people believe that it was saved by
            Kasparov and his good connections in Russia. When such an event as the
            chess Olympiad suffers from lack of finances, what can one expect in
            women’s chess?

            The fate of the potentially interesting match was quite frail for the moment.

            FIDE regulations stipulated that if there were no sponsors found, they would
            allocate the minimum of 20,000 Swiss francs (about $18,000) for a prize
            fund. This was not as much of a problem as the accompanying expenses of
            the organization (venue, arbiters, airfares, hotels, etc.).

            The "normal" time of the year that FIDE reserves for the final candidates
            match is the middle of January to the beginning of February. We were in
            December and nothing was set yet. The chess Olympiad was under way.

            As most chess players remember, there were some strange happenings
            during the Moscow Olympiad. It was rumored that although Campomanes
            was reelected as FIDE president, he served as a "puppet" on a string. That
            string had a heavyweight pulling on the other side, namely Andrey Makarov,
            head of the Russian chess federation.

            At the closing ceremony of the Moscow Olympiad I saw a gathering of
            Kasparov, Zurab Azmaiparashvili (a Georgian grandmaster), a few more
            Russian players and Mr. Makarov. About half an hour later, Azmaiparashvili
            (nicknamed "Azmai") and Maya Chiburdanidze, were seen discussing things.
            Maya came to us later and told us what had happened.

            According to her, Kasparov decided that $50,000 would be enough for the
            women’s final candidates match. When "Azmai", who was a good friend of
            Kasparov and one of his seconds for more than four years heard that, he
            protested that it was too low. To earn back the title was a national mission in
            Georgia and Zurab, who was the top Georgian player, knew he was getting
            the job of Maya’s main coach in the match and obviously was trying to
            increase his own fee.

            As it turned out, the final word was a $100,000 prize fund, and a gift (or
            "thing") for the winner. There was speculation about the gift. Before the end
            of the evening I heard that the "thing" was going to be a car (possibly a
            Mercedes Benz). Somehow I had doubts about the whole business.

            Makarov called Zsuzsa, after she received the Olympic medals, and had a
            conversation with her regarding the match. He sounded like he was doing a
            great favor for everyone by trying to organize the match in St. Petersburg,
            Russia. It wasn’t our dream place in that time of the year, and it was also
            sort of stepping into "enemy" territory ("Chibu" represented the former
            Soviet Union for many years and was definitely more Russian than Zsuzsa).
            The fact of the matter was that we had no choice. One thing that helped was
            that Zsuzsa speaks fluent Russian.

            After returning from the Moscow Olympiad (December 17, 1994) Zsuzsa
            had scheduled two training sessions. The first one was with her sister Judith,
            who came to New York in January 1995 for two weeks. In the last few
            days of their training, Judith was complaining that Zsuzsa tired quickly and
            seemed not at all motivated to play. Let’s not forget that the date for the
            match had not been determined yet, and considering the instability of the
            Russian officials, it wasn’t guaranteed that there would be a match at all.

            Judith went back to Hungary. Zsuzsa and I went for four days to Miami
            beach, to escape the New York winter and relax for a short while.

            We came back to New York. Zsuzsa had an invitation to play in a
            tournament in Bermuda, however the dates were too close to the arrival of
            Lev Psakhis for the second training session, so she had a good "excuse" to
            turn it down. It was a little unfortunate because we missed a small family
            reunion since my other sister-in-law, Sophia, went to play there.

            It was two weeks before our trip to St. Petersburg. We were a little more
            optimistic, as prospects for the match were encouraging. We received a
            letter from Makarov stating that the match would start February 26. Less
            than a week before our trip, the date had been changed to March 1.

            I had to schedule vacation from work. Another friend who chose to come
            with us was also complaining about the changes. As crime in Russia was at
            all time high, I told Zsuzsa that the best reward would be to come back alive.

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