A woman can beat any man; it's difficult to imagine another kind of sport where a woman can beat a man. That's why I like chess.
— Alexandra Kosteniuk
If people will be interested in me, they will be interested in chess also.
When you stop playing for a while, people tend to forget about you.
It's now possible to play and take lessons from any place of the world. The concept of physical distance doesn't exist in the online world, and that is so cool!
Chess is changing. I hope chess is getting more popular, more spectacular.
I have never been a professional model; I have had some modeling sessions.
Studying is something I really love doing, and I just hope to have enough money for tuition.
It's a shame to be the face of chess and to play chess badly.
You have to win something for people to think about you.
My dad sacrificed many things in life for me. He abandoned a very promising and lucrative career of an army officer just so that he could continue helping me with my chess and accompanying me to tournaments.