Natan Sharansky and Technology. As a child, he was a chess prodigy. He performed in simultaneous and blindfold displays, usually against adults. At the age of 15, he won the championship in his native Donetsk. When incarcerated in solitary confinement, he claims to have maintained his sanity by playing chess against himself in his mind. Sharansky beat the world chess champion Garry Kasparov in a simultaneous exhibition in Israel in 1996. He took his current Hebrew name in 1986, when he was freed from Soviet incarceration as part of a prisoner exchange and received an Israeli passport with his new name. Natan
Natan Rakhlin Natan Rakhlin Natan Grigoryevich Rakhlin (Russian: Натан Григорьевич Рахлин, Ukrainian: Натан Григорович Рахлін; in Snowsk near Chernihiv − June 28, 1979 in Kazan) was a Soviet conductor. Natan Grigorievich Rakhlin was born 10 January 1906 (in the Gregorian calendar, i.e. December 28, 1905 Julian calendar). He served as Artistic Director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine from 1937 to 1962 and was the musical director of a number of Soviet films. In 1941 he succeeded Alexander Gauk as director of the State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR. Under his direction the orchestra premiered Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11 on 30