Ground Zero: Russian Offers $10M for Muslim Center Site to Build Chess Center

MOSCOW, Sept. 17, 2010 -- The Russian president of the World Chess Federation is offering $10 million to buy the site of the controversial Muslim community center near Ground Zero in order to build an international chess center instead of the controversial mosque.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, also the president of the Russian Republic of Kalmykia, announced at a press conference in Moscow Thursday that he has sent letters to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Hisham Elzanaty, an investor in the Park51 site, on behalf of the World Chess Federation with their offer.

"I believe that international conflicts are extremely dangerous in complex times such as ours," Ilyumzhinov wrote in the letter to Bloomberg. "As the president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE) and as a person who has always supported interreligious understanding, I propose the construction of an International Chess Center at the suggested site of the mosque."

"My dream as president of FIDE is that chess becomes the only 'battlefield' between East and West," he added.

Ilyumzhinov told the Interfax news agency that his proposal is a solution to the "split within the American society" over the controversial project.

"What I am proposing is not to divide people on the basis of religion and ethnicity, but to unite the public around such a great game as chess," he said.

If accepted, he said, the center "will be built in the form of a chess figure, the king, of glass and concrete, which will decorate the city of New York."

Ilyumzhinov says that the offer of $10 million for Park51, also known as the Cordoba Project, was set because development mogul Donald Trump had previously made an offer "and we've decided to outbid him," according to news agency RIA Novosti. FIDE says the money would come from Ilyumzhinov himself and an unnamed investment group.

Trump's offer was blasted by a lawyer for Park51 developer Hisham Elzanaty as a "cheap attempt to get publicity and get in the limelight."