Young boy’s next move is a new life
Ukrainian refugee with a passion for chess adjusts to UK
YORK, England — Pints in hand, a group of men sat hunched over chessboards at the Eagle & Child pub in York, in northern England.
Among them sat Maksym Kryshtafor, an 8-year-old Ukrainian boy, who navigated his pieces with intense focus.
The group had moved up its weekly meeting to accommodate its young guest’s bedtime, and he was soon impressing these chess aficionados with decades more experience.
“He’s really good for his age,” said Paul Townsend, 62, an avid chess player and member of England’s chess federation. “And he clearly has a talent.”
Townsend and his family are hosting Maksym and his mother after the federation essentially played matchmaker and asked if they would be willing to sponsor the pair.
Over 6 million refugees have left Ukraine for Europe, according to the United Nations, each facing the challenges of a life ripped apart by war. Finding a pursuit that provides focus and stability can help exiles navigate the upheaval of restarting life far from home. For Maksym, it was chess. Days after arriving in Britain, Maksym drew the attention of the local news media when he won a tournament in County Durham, about 45 minutes north of York by train. He quickly became known on the local chess circuit.
“Chess is all his life, and now it’s all my life,” said Maksym’s mother, Iryna.
Chess has helped Maksym deal with adjusting to life in Britain, which has not always been easy.
Without a good grasp of English, he was placed with younger students for some of his lessons in school, and it has been hard to connect with other children, his mother said. He misses his grandparents, who lived with them in the Ukrainian city of Odesa and stayed behind. Maksym’s mother is estranged from his father.
When the war broke out in February, Iryna Kryshtafor, 45, had scrambled to throw her and Maksym’s most essential belongings into a rucksack as they fled for the border.
Countless mothers across Ukraine were focused on how to save their children while maintaining a sense of stability, and Kryshtafor was no different.
While she forgot to bring a winter coat for herself, she packed the things she knew were most important to Maksym: a chess book, a laptop for him to practice his games on and the white polo shirt and red fleece he wears for every competition.
They went first to Romania, where they stayed for weeks. Then Kryshtafor reached out to the English Chess Federation to see if someone would host her and Maksym so he could continue playing and return to school.
She was eventually connected with Townsend and his wife, Helen, who offered them an annex in their house near York, under a program that allowed British families to host Ukrainians fleeing the war for six months. So far, over 65,000 people have headed to Britain from Ukraine under the program.
Under British policy, families agree to host Ukrainians for six months, and their visas last for up to three years. The Kryshtafors will need to find a place of their own unless the sponsors allow them to stay beyond the initial agreement.
To ease the anxiety, mother and son have thrown themselves into chess, a focus of much of Maksym’s young life — he began playing at 4.
Both have expressed hope that he can become a grandmaster before turning 12, eager to unseat the world’s youngest person to reach the prestigious ranking. But Townsend and other chess aficionados say that goal is a long shot.
“Does that mean he’s going to become a grandmaster ever, let alone at the age of 12? Not necessarily,” he said.
Maksym wakes at 5 a.m. each day to practice online before school and until recently had regular online training sessions with a Ukrainian chess grandmaster through the Ukrainian Chess Federation.
So far, his lucky outfit and his hours of training have served him well as he continues to win in England. In late July, he and his mother traveled to Greece for the European Youth Chess Championship, where he won in two categories in his age group.
Like many former Soviet nations, Ukraine has a long tradition of strong chess grandmasters, Townsend said, but often the expectation is of total dedication to the game from a young age.
“You would see it as a place where chess is taken a lot more seriously than it is here,” Townsend said. Parents put young children into rigorous training programs, and school is often second to chess.
“It’s such a massive, culturally different approach to chess playing,” Helen
Townsend said. As a diversion from chess, she has enjoyed showing Maksym how to cook, taking him on nature walks and building with Lego pieces.
But much of Maksym’s time is still dedicated to chess.
On a recent Saturday morning, Paul Townsend took Maksym and Kryshtafor to a Quaker school in York for a competition involving 120 youths ages 7-18. Boards were lined up on tables in a gym, filled with row after row of children tapping clocks and moving pieces.
Some of the children were so small that when seated, their feet swung above the floor. Maksym’s sneakers barely touched it.
He sat, fidgeting slightly, while the organizers rattled off the rules in English. He did not understand much of what was being said. Yet his first match was over in less than a minute.
He ran into the hall where Kryshtafor was waiting and embraced her. After the next match, Maksym again went running out to his mother.
“Too easy,” he said with a smile. “I made a checkmate.”
Before the fifth match, Maksym pressed his forehead against his mother’s and she whispered words of encouragement. His opponent, an older boy, arrived just before play began.
Maksym rested his chin on his hand and smiled until, suddenly, he realized he had made a mistake. He pulled at tufts of his hair, twisting them around his fingers. He eventually lost to the boy, and after they shook hands, he wiped tears from his eyes.
Maksym eventually placed second in the competition. By the end, he seemed more interested in chatting with children who had organized a game of tag.
“He works so hard with chess that sometimes you forget he’s just a child,” his mother said.