Pia Cramling, Swedish chess grandmaster, who has been one of the strongest female players in the world since the early 1980s. She regularly plays on the Swedish open team in the Chess Olympiads, one of only three women to regularly play on the open teams. In 1992, she was awarded the title of grandmaster by FIDE. The winner of the women’s European Individual Chess Championship in 2003 and 2010 came in Khanty-Mansiysk. This city was the one of the reasons for her to take part in tournament.

 - You’ve just arrived to Khanty-Mansiysk. How do you feel today at the beginning of the tournament?

- I have been here once before, it’s very lovely place for me. More than that, it was one of the reasons to play, I was dreaming to came back here once again. The only one thing, it was very long trip for me to reach Khanty-Mansiysk, I’m not very young so it took some effort to me. Except there was very warm in playing hall today, everything is great! It should be like this everywhere!

- Do you prefer rapid more than classic chess?

- I’m classical player mostly, but I like rapid chess too. It’s better for me to play with 20-25 minutes time control, but this tournament is also very nice.

- You are considered to be good rapid player. I can recall your great victory in ACP Cup in 2012?

- Yes, it was very nice result, but here I noticed: it’s better for me to have much more time to rest between the games. I would prefer to have the next game only tomorrow, but here is the difference of rapid and blitz – you need to have a lot of energy every day. Anyway, this tournament is very lovely for me, it is important that we continue to play such tournaments. I`m glad to have this tradition, the last rapid and blitz championship was held in 2012 but I’d like to have such events every year because they are very exciting and spectacular, we need to have it.