informatie

A silent guest.                         

These last three weeks in Hardenberg, during the WC Draughts 2007, Mr Rafail Zdoroveac has shown to be a modest man, usually to be found when sitting behind the pc in the tournament room while assisting dr. ir. Paul van de Veen.
Born in Moldavia in 1938 and having lived in Germany for ten years now, he has already proven himself to be a specialist in draughts.
He has been playing the game since he was 13 years old and recently found himself rewarded with the title of International Grandmaster (in the correspondence game).
Among other things, he is keeping good memories of a drawn game he once played against Georgiev and which took place in Berlin.

Formerly, in his native country Russia, Zdoroveac frequently used to write comments and reviews on draughts for various newspapers and apart from that, he had been active as a manager of the draughts and chess organisation for ten years and had also been active as a coach. In the mean time, he has been noted down for 5 books on draughts, and the latest of them was published in the English language. So, here we are, facing a man who is having warm feelings for the game called draughts.
He therefore is following with great pleasure, all the games during this tournament in order to be able to give in Russian, the right commend on them, on this website, and which are meant for his former compatriots, furthermore he is also acting as a correspondent for a Russian newspaper which is published in Germany.
His personal favorites are Valneris and Shvartsman.
Nevertheless, he is considering Podolski, Chizhov or Georgiev as the most likely possible winners of the title. Shvartsman was already having some contacts in The Netherlands and via him Zdoroveac has become a personal friend of Paul van de Veen.
During our interview, it appeared that writing seems to be in Zdoroveac’s blood, for although commenting on draughts games is a pleasant occupation for him, and besides this, he, moreover, is also writing poetry. Particularly humor and mysticism are some of his favourite subjects to write about. For the sixth time now, his poem was chosen to be best of all entries of “Europa Express “; a Russian newspaper in Germany.
Furthermore, his spare time is spent with painting in water-colours, a hobby which, in a later life, he had been able to learn from a friend.
A man with a lot of activities and who’s having great fun in what he’s doing.
Indeed, a silent guest with various talents.