Nikolay Kralin

Nikolay Ivanovich Kralin was born in Moscow in December 1944. The Moscow Chess Federation and Russian Wikipedia give the date as 27 December 1944; Wikidata gives 17 December and German Wikipedia notes 26 or 17 December. He came through the Moscow chess school Yuny Dinamovets and became interested in chess composition in the early 1960s, publishing his first problem in 1961 as a tenth-year school pupil. He trained as an electrical engineer and graduated from the Moscow Institute of Management named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze.

Kralin worked for most of his life outside chess and composed alongside his main employment. From 1961 he published about 160 endgame studies and 50 problems, winning 140 tournament distinctions, including 66 prizes and 34 first prizes. He competed in eight individual USSR championships in chess composition between 1965 and 1987: first in the studies section of the 14th championship (1983), shared third and fourth in the 15th (1984), second in the 16th (1985) and shared first and second in the 17th (1987). He was Moscow champion in studies in 1983 and 1984 and took the silver medal in studies at the first World Championship in chess composition. He became master of sport of the USSR in 1983, international master of chess composition in 1988 and grandmaster of chess composition in 2005.

His studies were noted for lively struggle on both sides and fine mutual play, often ending in stalemate or zugzwang ideas. He also wrote compositions inspired by Russian literature, such as the study "Prisoner of the Caucasus" and the problem "A Ray of Sunlight on the Chessboard", both after Leo Tolstoy.

For more than two decades he headed the Centre of Chess Culture and Information at the State Public Scientific and Technical Library of Russia (GPNTB), which was founded on his initiative and later named after Yuri Averbakh. He was also a deputy director of the library. The centre gathered a large chess library and hosted creative evenings, exhibitions and meetings with players and historians.

Kralin lived and worked in Moscow throughout his life. Colleagues described him as a man of rare generosity, attentive to other people's ideas and devoted to chess, who encouraged beginning composers. Details of his family were not given in the federation notices or reference sources used for this profile.

Nikolay Kralin died in Moscow on 4 November 2026, aged 81 according to Russian Wikipedia. The Russian Chess Federation announced his death the same day, and the Moscow Chess Federation, Sport-Express and Komsomolskaya Pravda carried tributes; some notices described him as being in his 83rd year. The cause of death was not made public. His farewell and funeral service took place on 7 November 2026 at the Church of St Alexis Mechev on Veshnyakovskaya Street in Moscow.

Kralin is remembered as one of the outstanding Russian endgame study composers of his generation, a USSR and Moscow champion and a grandmaster of chess composition whose studies are still cited as models of the genre. Through the GPNTB Centre of Chess Culture and Information he also helped preserve and share Russian chess heritage, giving composers, players and historians a home in Moscow. The Russian Chess Federation said his legacy was inseparable from the country's chess culture.