{"id":10893,"date":"2016-05-11T12:02:15","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T15:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturedarm.com\/?p=10893"},"modified":"2016-05-11T12:02:15","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T15:02:15","slug":"cultureteca-28-02-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/cultureteca-28-02-16\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultureteca 28.02.16"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cultureteca<\/strong><\/p>\n

Russian Ice Swimmers Play Chess in a Near-Freezing Urals Lake<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Lake Shartash near the city of Yekaterinburg – the administrative centre of the Urals region which straddles Europe and Asia – Russian ice swimmers have taken to playing chess in just their underwear, as a means of physical and mental preparation ahead of their swim meets. The idea emerged several months ago when the swimmers found\u00a0files on the winter training habits of their Soviet predecessors, and they played their first games towards the end of last year<\/a> before returning to the spot at the beginning of this week. Plunging into water of around 5 degrees Celsius and balancing the chess board on loose shards of ice, each game has a time limit of ten minutes. One swimmer named Denis explained<\/a>:<\/p>\n

‘The benefit of this is that you get to work on your physical and mental stamina, to\u00a0see how your body is prepared to withstand any obstacles that life brings on.\u00a0Playing in icy cold water, it helps to concentrate. One can even work out a technique to enable one to stay in the water for longer, which\u00a0is a big benefit of chess.<\/p>\n