25+ Year Track Record of Developing Top Competitors, Building Discipline and Self-Worth, Inspiring Lifelong Learning, and Teaching Young Minds to Think Several Moves Ahead
Since her days as one of the top young chess talents in the former Soviet Union, Anjelina Belakovskaia has pursued a lifelong path of teaching excellence, intellectual rigor, and high-level competitive performance.
Anjelina is a Woman Grandmaster, three-time U.S. Women’s Chess Champion, two-time U.S. Senior Women’s Champion, and a former leader of the U.S. Women’s Olympiad team.
Selected for the highly exclusive Botvinnik Chess School, which trained some of the Soviet Union’s most gifted young players, she later studied under Grandmaster and multi-time World Championship contender Viktor Korchnoi. She brings decades of elite competitive experience to her work as a teacher and program director.
Beyond the 64 squares of the chessboard, Anjelina advocates for the power of chess to transform young minds: fostering lifelong learning, strengthening memory and concentration, and even building a bridge to success in business and financial markets.
For more than 25 years, Anjelina has taught over 2,000 students in New York public schools, Arizona charter schools, university settings, and private instruction, from young children to Wall Street executives.
Her students have progressed from complete beginners to 800+ USCF strength in about 18 months, earned places on US Chess Top 100 lists, and won state championships.
Anjelina and her husband, Lawrence Bernstein, have taught young players, organized chess programs, and supported the development of students from age four through their teenage years.
Together, they founded the annual Chess & Science Festival in partnership with the University of Arizona’s Flandrau Science Center & Planetarium, a six-year Tucson community event centered on an all-girls chess tournament and designed to connect chess with STEM education, confidence-building, and broader success in math, science, finance, business, and life.