Before becoming a chess outcast for pro-Putin comments, Sergey Karjakin was the OG prodigy who stopped Magnus Carlsen’s bid at becoming youngest Grandmaster

Karjakin is often remembered lately — if he’s remembered at all — for being the challenger to Magnus Carlsen in the 2016 World Chess Championship held in New York Metropolis or his feedback in assist of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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However Karjakin’s story is way more than simply being a Putin cheerleader, as his critics name him. In a sport of prodigies, he was considered one of the quickest rising gamers in his youth. He held the document for becoming the youngest grandmaster in chess historical past for 19 years earlier than Abhimanyu Mishra bettered it. In setting the document, Karjakin had outpaced Carlsen and even D Gukesh and R Praggnanandhaa did not beat it.

Karjakin’s story is way more than simply being a Vladimir Putin cheerleader, as his critics name him. (PHOTO: X/Sergey Karjakin)

When Ruslan Ponomariov turned the youngest world champion in historical past, Karjakin — simply 12 years of age at the time — was a second to him.

Born in Crimea’s Simferopol to a decrease middle-class household and formed by the chess college in Japanese Ukraine’s Kramatorsk — which has been described as the best expertise manufacturing facility of that point — Karjakin was by no means wanting confidence. When he turned the youngest grandmaster in historical past, journalists wished to know once they may count on him to turn into world champion. “At 16,” he proclaimed.

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The trail to becoming the youngest world champion known as for sacrifices, equivalent to uprooting his life from Simferopol and shifting to Kramatorsk over 1,000 kilometer away. However it was a determination that Karjakin’s mother and father made with out blinking.

“We needed to depart our jobs and transfer to Kramatorsk. That was a onerous determination to make. We sacrificed the whole lot in order that he may turn into world champion. The transfer to Kramatorsk was crucial to grasp his potential,” Karjakin’s father Alexander mentioned in a documentary known as Sergey by Alexander Turpin.

FIDE in all probability doesn’t know that taking again a transfer is forbidden in chess!
🤡😂🤡 https://t.co/BYlaMXEzDO

— Sergey Karjakin 🇷🇺🇷🇺🇷🇺 (@SergeyKaryakin) March 2, 2026

“There wasn’t a single grandmaster in Crimea at that point. It wasn’t simple to journey both and we obtained no assist from the authorities. This stuff slowed down his improvement,” added mom Tatyana.

Single-minded

At Kramatorsk, Karjakin labored nine-hour days on a regular basis.

“Coaching him was like having a dragon that eats the whole lot. It comes over, and you need to preserve feeding it. It eats the whole lot you feed it, after which calls for extra,” Alexander Alexikov, his earliest coach at the Kramatorsk chess college mentioned in the documentary.

Simply when it seemed like he was on observe to meet his personal prophecy of becoming world champion by 16, the Kramatorsk chess college shut after the head of the institute died.

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“We went again to Simferopol once I was 13 years outdated. From the age of 13 to 19, I didn’t have any assist,” Karjakin mentioned in the documentary.

So when Russia provided him citizenship, his household gladly accepted, uprooting themselves as soon as once more in chase of what they felt was the boy’s future.

In Karjakin, Russia noticed the alternative to have their very own world champion for the first time since Vladimir Kramnik in 2007.

Karjakin did earn his shot at the title match, 10 years later than he had predicted.

Now 36, Karjakin finds himself out of the rankings checklist and out of competition for one other tilt at the world champion’s crown. However being shut out of the slender confines of the chess board has not dimmed his ambition. He’s simply discovered different avenues.

Three years in the past, he contested the election to turn into the president of the Russian Chess Federation, however misplaced. He has been awarded the Russian Federation’s medal “For Benefit to the Fatherland”. And since 2024, he has been a Senator in the Crimean parliament (which is now run by Russia because it annexed the area).