In those days, when St. Petersburg was still Petrograd, an amazing battle took place on one of the city's squares. It was a chess game between two famous grandmasters - Peter Romanovsky and Ilya Rabinovich. But the field in this game was a city square, and the chess pieces were real people.
On July 20, 1924, Uritsky Square - now called Palace Square - gathered an unprecedented number of people. Eight thousand spectators came to watch the unusual chess game. The paving stones were laid out into 64 squares, in which the “figures” took their places. The game was played between the Red Navy and the army; infantrymen played for "blacks", sailors - for "whites"
The variegated "figures" - queens in sundresses, gunners with cannons, kings with the banners of their army - looked very unusual. Knight moves were made by real horses, only there were no living elephants. On the platforms were the grandmasters and assistants with horns, who communicated moves to the figures.
That July game lasted five hours, with only two short breaks. The best chess players of the 30s faced off in a fascinating battle, but they could not determine the strongest. Romanovskiy made an attack, sacrificing a pawn, but it failed. As a result, on move 67, the game ended in a "draw" at the suggestion of "White"
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