A farewell ceremony was held in Baku on Tuesday for the outstanding Azerbaijani grandmaster Vugar Gashimov.

State officials, MPs, relatives and friends attended the farewell ceremony at the Baku Chess Center.

Following the ceremony, Gashimov was buried at the 3rd Alley of Honor in Baku.

Vugar Gashimov, who was one of the world's top players for a decade and who helped lead his team to the gold medal in the European Team Chess Championship in 2009, died at the age of 27 on Jan. 11 in Germany, where he had reportedly been receiving treatment for a brain tumor.

Gashimov was born on July 24, 1986, in Baku and learned to play chess when he was six from his father, an army colonel.

Gashimov was known as a particularly strong blitz chess player. Together with Radjabov, 26, and Mammadyarov, 28, Vugar Gashimov formed the nucleus of a formidable team, and Azerbaijan became a perennial challenger for the gold medal at international team championships, including the biennial Chess Olympiads in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008. Endi

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