In the autumn of 1999, I was invited to work as a coach for the national team of Kuwait. The offer was tempting, especially since earning chess in Armenia at the time was not easy. And I agreed. I formed the documents, and on December 27, under the very millennium, I was in Kuwait.
At the airport, I was met by an elderly gray-haired man in a white long to floor traditional shirt called Dishdasha. He became President of the Federation. We sat in his buick and went “to me.” I wasn’t interested in English at the time, but with grief halfway I kept the conversation along the way. When they got home, he took my passport and said:
You will be taken to school by car and then taken home. You cannot leave the house. Federation and home. Don’t even try to contact other foreigners.
I felt like I heard it in a nightmare. And just before I arrived, I watched a movie where a foreigner, coming to one of the Arab countries, was captured by employers. Abu Khaled — so the president was called — came out, and I was left standing in the middle of a luxurious apartment. Slowly recovering, I went down to the suitcase and started thinking what to do. But the more I thought, the more I fell into despair. I cursed the day I decided to come here.
In the evening, a car came for me, and we went to the federation. It was the last round of a competition. The local chess players approached me, we met, and the mood improved a little bit. The old man’s words did not come out of his head. Like Rubik Hachikyan in “Mimino,” I was looking for someone with good eyes. The choice fell on a young man in jeans and a mayka (the rest were in national dishdasha). After listening to me, the guy said he knew the president well and that he could not tell me that. We went up to Abu Khaled’s office, and Taher (my “saviour”) told him about my concerns. It turned out that at my home, the president said the following: “The classes will be held in the federation, at home you can’t. The driver will take you back until your driving license is ready. There are foreign chess players in Kuwait, and if they want to take private lessons, refuse.” He took my passport to obtain a residence permit.
After that, I decided to learn English.