Buddhist Republic, Chess City

A brief follow up to the Lost Cosmonaut post.  The idea of a "Chess Republic" is imaginatively explored in Lost Cosmonaut and factually explored in this documentary from 1998.

Kalmykia as a whole seems to exist in that flickering liminal zone, insufficiently centered on the main flows of the modern world, yet still connected enough to be buffeted by waves in its wake.  A place where ideals can be superimposed on reality, with some success it seems, viz. Город Шахмат.