Samarkand, Uzbekistan (CI Ukraine) – “My grandfather was born in Kazakhstan,” were one of the first words spoken by Timur Turlov, the 38-year-old founder and CEO of Freedom Holding, an $11.5 billion fintech company listed on Nasdaq, during a formal interview at the 46th Annual FIDE Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
[Freedom Holding Corp [Nasdaq: FRHC] CEO and founder Timur Turlov speaks to Capitol Intelligence/CI Ukraine using CI Glass on FIDE Presidency and Ukraine, expanding Freedom Holding in Europe, US and Africa and efforts to expand chess among women during the 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan]
Throughout his ten-day campaign in Samarkand to become president of Lausanne-based FIDE—the International Chess Federation—Turlov sported a traditional Kazakh vest over his tailored business suit.
Turlov said he would lead international chess federation that has all the intrigue and drama of FIFA, the Olympics, and Formula 1—but without the money—guided by Kazakhstan’s Central Asian philosophy of being a good neighbor to all.
“I am proud to be a citizen of Kazakhstan. A middle power, a country who is trying to keep a right balance in this region [between the United States, Russian and China] and I am trying to advocate for this … independence in policy,” Turlov said, later adding in the interview. “We value our independence very much. We also understand that the key here, the source of our independence i[Kazakhstan] is our ability to keep relationships with all our neighbors but not fall love with any of them.”
Like Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Timur Turlov avoids unnecessarily provoking Russia’s deadly tendencies while building strong bridges with the United States and European Union.
Timur Turlov, unlike his Russian-born Fintech rival, Revolut’s Nikolay Storonsky, is under Ukrainian economic sanctions and accused to pro-Russian sympathies notwithstanding renouncing Russian citizenship immediately after Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and relocating his family to Kazakhstan in 2011.
On October 2, Russia declared that have put Turlov and his companies under Russian economic sanctions for funding “Ukrainian organizations,” the making Turlov the only person to be sanctioned by both Russia and Ukraine.
FIDE and Turlov are accused of being pro-Russian due to FIDE being run by Russia’s former Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich from 2018 until July 2026 when the “reformed liberal” economic advisor was forced to resign due to EU sanctions. While Turlov refused to call for Dvorkovich’s resignation, he publicly supports the ban on Russian participation in FIDE.
As a businessman leading a Nasdaq-listed company rather than a politician, Turlov sought to address accusations that he and FIDE were pro-Russian by appointing Mykhailo Podolyak, a presidential adviser and close confidant of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as a FIDE vice president.
FIDE also elected Michael Khordakosky, an American born in Odesa, Ukraine, and president of the Kasparov Chess Foundation, as a FIDE vice president, offsetting the controversial election of former Russian sports minister Pavel Kobolokov. Chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov remains one of the most vocal opponents of Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine inside the United States.
While London-based Storonsky is not under Ukraine sanctions, Storonsky’s father is under Ukraine sanctions for working for the main cash source for the Ukraine war, Russia state oil group, Gazprom Neft.
[FIDE presidential candidates Timur Turlov and AOL Europe founder Jan Henric Buettner discuss AWOL candidate Wadim Rosenstein with David Llada looking on and discussing US libel action during the 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan]
Timur Turlov transformed a small brokerage specialized in the US listed equities into the world’s most dynamic digital financial company. The Freedom Holding super app offers banking, near instant mortgages, stock trading, Tesla purchases, travel bookings, streaming, taxi services, and food delivery—in one platform with more than 13 million users.
“When Timur opened his brokerage business, he sold Facebook shares with mixed success. What really made his brokerage business into a huge success when he sold recently IPO’d Tesla shares to his clients,” a long-time co-worker said. At the time Tesla had a market capitalization of $1.7 billion that has since mushroomed to over $1.39 trillion.
So far Freedom has been focused on the markets of Central Asia and neighboring countries and is expanding its business into the European Union.
“We have recently acquired a bank in Türkiye ad will scale all the [Freedom Holding] ecosystem to Turkey. We are also expecting a [banking] license in the European Union. We recently filed with [banking regulator] ACPR in France for a banking license,” Turlov said, adding. “We took a license in Tajikistan here in Central Asia, and we are expecting approval in Georgia. So yeah, we are scaling the world.”
While expanding into the United States is his ultimate dream, Turlov said the company is working to expand Freedom Holding into Africa.
“We have not yet announced it, but we are looking at some financial centers in Africa for potential roll outs,” he said, adding that Africa is a major continent for growth due to its demographics and the ability for “AI to equalize human capital through education.”
When asked where the expansion would occur in Africa, Turlov identified East Africa but declined to name a specific country nor confirm whether Kenya or Ethiopia was under consideration.
Timur Turlov’s leadership of FIDE may also bring him closer to his goal of becoming a major player in the US financial-services market and re-entering the geopolitically critical market of Ukraine.
A major event that will lift Freedom Holding’s visibility on Wall Street is the upcoming October 23 visit by Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, to tour the $1.5bn Alem.AI International Center for Artificial Intelligence developed by Freedom Holding and Citibank using Nvidia chips.
The visit to Alem.AI by the CEO of the world’s wealthiest company (circa $5.48 trln market capitalization) will be first visit by Huang to the Central Asian nation and a gigantic win for Kazakhstan and Freedom Holding.
Turlov said he would be open to having a strategic US partner for Freedom Holding, particularly in the banking and Fintech sector. He said he has not spoken with Citibank CEO Jane Fraser and has had only brief dealings with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon.
[Bank of America Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser filmed by Capitol Intelligence/CI Ukraine using CI Glass refusing to thank or recognize frontline Ukraine army soldiers at the US Senate ahead of testifying to the US Senate Banking and Rural Affairs Committee on September 22, 2022]
In just over two weeks, Uzbekistan will host a U.S. delegation representing more than 100 leading American companies in Samarkand. The delegation, led by agricultural equipment giants Caterpillar, John Deere, and CNH, will attend a C5+1 summit involving the United States and the five Central Asian countries: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan led by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
During the first Trump administration, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross helped attract billions in private U.S. investment to Uzbekistan, contributing to one of the world’s most significant economic turnarounds in over three decades.
While Uzbekistan is overjoyed of having become the world’s 2026 chess champion, the arrival of more than 100 American companies to the cultural capital of the ancient Silk Road is an even bigger victory.
The growing participation of women and African nations is reshaping championship chess, and Turlov sees these groups as key to FIDE’s future growth.
He said he would speak with Maurice Ashley, the first Black American chess grandmaster, about expanding chess in the United States—particularly in underserved urban communities, where Ashley pioneered such efforts in the late 1990s.
During a telephone interview from Bali, Ashley expressed his support for Turlov’s focus on underserved communities, particularly African American communities, as part of an effort to broaden the sport’s appeal in the world’s largest economy.
After becoming the first African American grandmaster in 1999 and inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 2016, Ashley said that much more work remains to make chess more appealing, particularly in inner-city and underserved communities.
The Jamaican-born coach, who moved to Brooklyn as a child, gained recognition in the United States for successfully leading two Harlem junior high school chess teams—the “Raging Rooks” and the “Dark Knights”—to national championships.
Ashley said that the communities lack access to chess coaches and funds to travel to chess matches.
“Even the talented players won’t pursue chess because they themselves can’t afford it,” he said. “Which is why I got my fellowship together and use my own dollars into trying to lift these kids up.”
Ashley, who knows Timur Turlov from several chess events, said the new FIDE president is already making great strides by convincing Salesforce founder Marc Benioff to become the corporate sponsor of the upcoming FIDE male and women chess championships.
Maurice Ashley unknowingly became a key link between international chess in urban America and Turlov’s plans to expand in the United States and eventual return to Ukraine.
[Vista Equity Partners founder and Chairperson Robert F. Smith speaks to Capitol Intelligence/CI Ukraine using CI Glass on how he has been supporting Ukraine for decades and is making new investments into the country while attending the 60th Anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr’s March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial on August 26, 2023]
Robert F. Smith, founder and chairman of Vista Equity Partners, a technology investment firm based in Austin, Texas, is a leading investor in emerging technologies. The firm manages more than $40 billion in assets. Hollywood actor Will Smith introduced Robert F. Smith – the most successful Black American business leader –to U.S. chess champion Maurice Ashley.
In turn, Ashley met and befriended Will Smith some 26-years ago when Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith gifted her husband a day with grandmaster Ashley as a Valentine’s day gift.
Not only can FIDE President Turlov and Robert Smith could collaborate to establish chess clubs in US big city public schools; but work together to expand Freedom Holding’s presence in the United States and international markets, including Ukraine, where Robert F. Smith has been investing for over two decades.
Turlov’s FIDE presidency may become the subject of a Hollywood film starring Will Smith as a Harlem chess coach for the “Raging Rooks.” The script was written by Geoffrey Fletcher, screenwriter of Oscar winning director Lee Daniel’s film, Precious.
By drawing on the Kazakh way and the legacy of the Silk Road, Turlov may ultimately achieve his long-term ambitions: making chess an official Olympic sport and establishing Freedom Holding as a leading financial-services firm in the United States.
PK Semler in Samarkand, Uzbekistan; Astana; Kazakhstan and Odesa, Ukraine.
For more information, email pks@capitolintelgroup.com
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