Kira Zvorykina — a great-grand-aunt of Renat Besolov on the maternal line, chess grandmaster
A Soviet chess player and international grandmaster, three-time USSR champion, two-time chess olympiad winner, and a challenger for the world crown (1960). Great-niece of the inventor V. K. Zworykin.
An attacking style and a title match
Kira Alekseevna Zvorykina was born on 29 September 1919 in Mykolaiv. She was the sixth of eight children in the Zvorykin family; among her sisters was Milica Zvorykina, Renat Besolov's great-grandmother.
A chess player of a pronounced attacking style, Zvorykina took part in 20 USSR championships and was three times national champion (1951, 1953, 1956). With the USSR team she twice won the World Chess Olympiads (1957 and 1963).
In 1959 she won the Candidates tournament and earned the right to a match for the women's world title against Elizaveta Bykova (1960), which she lost. She achieved the grandmaster norm in 1978; Honoured Master of Sport of the USSR (1957), International Arbiter (1977), holder of the Order of the Badge of Honour.
From 1953 to 1999 she lived in Minsk, headed the chess federation of the Belarusian SSR in 1968-1970, and later moved to Moscow. She died on 6 September 2014 in Moscow.
The Zvorykin family — maternal line
Kira Zvorykina was the own sister of Milica Zvorykina, Renat Besolov's great-grandmother; therefore Kira is Renat's great-grand-aunt on the maternal line. The sibling link between Kira and Milica is reflected in Kira's biography; further degrees of kinship are given per family records.