When seven of the world’s 18 highest-rated players competed in London last month, it was hailed as the strongest tournament of 2013.

But this month, eight of the top 15 — and 38 of the top 100 — played in another event that got very little attention.

This is the Russian Team Championship, a massive event that in post-Soviet times has become the most impressive annual team event in the world.

The teams are by no means limited to Russians. Among the foreigners who competed in the tournament in Sochi are Gata Kamsky of the United States, Quang Liem Le of Vietnam, Fabiano Caruana of Italy, Peter Leko of Hungary and Kirshnan Sasikiran of India.

The tournament and its melting pot teams was a kind of mini-UN, thanks to the chess version of free agency.

The winning team, representing the St. Petersburg chess federation, included Sergei Movsesian, who was born in Soviet Georgia, later played for the Czech Republic, then Slovakia and now calls Armenia his home country.

In this weeks’s game from the tournament, White gives up three minor pieces for Black’s queen but wins only when he finds a way to advance his kingside pawns, e.g. 44 . . . Kxc6 45 g6 and queens.