The youngest chess champion Ponomarev Ruslan is considered of many to be the greatest chess player in Ukraine of all time. He started playing chess at the age of 6 in Kramatorsk. He distinguished himself as the youngest Grand Master in the world in 1997, broken a record of Fisher. At the age of 18 he became the youngest world champion. He continued to hold the World Championship Title to 2004. In 2004 he gave up to take place in the World Chempionship because, in his opinion, the conditions of the tournament were unfair. Ruslan put the blame on Grand Master Kasparov for appropriation of the World Championship Title and on the President of FIDE for helping Kasparov to hold it. So Ponomarev withdrew from the match with Kasparov and disrupted the tournament. After those events the treatment to Ponomarev in the chess world changed from admiring and positive to negative. Organizers of some tournaments do not want to invite him to take place in matches. Despite it he continues to win different competitions in the world. He was decorated with Order of Yaroslav the Wise and Order of Merit.