Playing Chess to Save her Four-Month-Old Daughter: Help Georgia's IM Salome Melia

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2013

Hello everyone,

Here is an interview with IM Salome Melia of Georgia via from the official website of the Astana World Women's Team Chess Championship 2013. 

Anastasiya Karlovich: Salome you’ve been playing for the National Georgian team for so many years. Can you share your impressions? Is it really important and crucial for you to represent your country in such tournaments as World Women Team Championship?

Salome Melia: It’s a great responsibility for me to represent my country in such an important event. I think it’s important to any country to be here. This tournament is especially important for me as I have some kind of particular situation in my life. Today it’s a second round and I played my first game in the tournament. I made a draw against Qi Guo from China. 

Today Georgia plays one of the key matches against China. How do you estimate the chance of your team? How difficult was your game today?

Of course we should not underestimate the Chinese team but we should say that they came here without strongest players. Of course we want to win. As for my game I would say that my opponent didn’t fight for initiative. As a result, it was easy to equalize, the position was simple, so it was easy draw.

You’ve mentioned some special circumstances in your life which makes this tournament very special for you. Can you please share with us what happened?

I don’t want people to exaggerate and make a tragedy but the situation is quite difficult for me. I have a daughter (4 months old) who has got health problem – heart disease. I’m not playing only for the team here, I also play for money because I want her alive. The operation cost big money.

Salome, can you please tell us how expensive is the operation and where the surgery must take place?

The operation is very complex and, unfortunately, it’s impossible do make it in Georgia. We need to go to Germany, where the operation costs 60,000 euros. We received a response from the USA, but there it costs about a million. Operation should be done before the end of March, but it is difficult to find such amount of money. I really hope that the operation will help, as no one guarantees the result, because it is very difficult to do heart surgery on a child.

Journalists appeal to the chess community, philanthropists and ask to help Salome Melia in her difficult situation.


You can send money to this account:
Beneficiary: Salome Melia
Number of account: GE57PC0193600100007067
Bank code (SWIFT): MIBGGE22
Name of bank: ProCredit Bank, Tbilisi, Georgia
address of bank: 21 Al. Kazbegi Ave., 0160 Tbilisi, Georgia.

 

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