The Miami Herald Miami, Florida Friday, July 14, 1972 - Page 24
Boris May Live in Style — Win or Lose ([Depending, of course, if his performance appeases Soviet whims… or Nyet])
Moscow — (AP) — No matter what, Boris Spassky is going to return to his Communist homeland a rich man, even by capitalist standards.
But the Soviet government and the National Chess Federation have apparently yet to decide whether the Russian chess champion can keep the earnings from his Reykjavik encounter with the American challenger Bobby Fischer.
Viktor Baturinsky, director of the Soviet Chess Club, said the allocation of Spassky's prize money “has not been decided.” He made it clear, though, that the chess club feels entitled to a good chunk of Spassky's winnings.
IT IS ILLEGAL for a Soviet citizen to possess foreign currency. But the regulation is waived for some of the Soviet elite permitted to travel abroad and earn Western currency.
If the 35-year-old Spassky is anything like other members of the Soviet intelligentsia who earn dollars abroad, he will want to buy himself a Western car.
Prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya has been paid in foreign currency for her performances in the West and now rides around the Soviet capital in the comfort of a French Citroen. ([Equality?])
And the renowned cellist Matislav Rostropovich motors in a maroon Mercedes-Benz to his country dacha. ([Such indulgence of decadent western consumerism! for the “elite” and “capitalist soviet imperialists” only of course.])
A TENANT at the dacha is the banned writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose books have earned him a fortune abroad. But because of the Soviet regime's anger at the 1970 Nobel laureate, Solzhenitzyn's thousands sit untouched in a Swiss bank.
Even if he loses, Spassky will return home with about $119,375. At the official exchange rate that's 98,245 rubles and 63 kopeks, or more than the average Russian worker can make in 78 years. ([In other words, slavery wages.]) And if he wins, Spassky gets an estimated $180,625.
Should the current world chess champion decide to buy a car, he'll have to pay 100 per cent custom charge before he can bring it home. That won't hurt him too much, since an ordinary domestic Soviet sedan costs 9,200 rubles, or $11,178 at the official rate.
SPASSKY PROBABLY will convert a substantial amount of his prize into certificates that enable him to shop at the special food and consumer goods stores established for the Soviet elite in Moscow and Leningrad ([where's the Equality?! That Caviar is reeking of Imperialism!]), his home town.
The rest of the dollars can be deposited in a Western bank account for future purchases of the French sports shirts he has acquired a taste for, clothes for his wife and other items unobtainable here, such as high-quality tape recorders or Western records.