Andreas Ascharin

Andreas Ascharin was a Russian chess master of Baltic German descent.

Life

Ascharin's father was Russian and his mother was from a Baltic German family. He read law in Dorpat. Between 1875 and 1879, he worked in Saint Petersburg as a journalist for the St. Petersburger Zeitung and the St. Petersburger Herold. He also played in local chess tournaments. In 1876, he won ahead of Mikhail Chigorin and Emanuel Schiffers. In 1877 he lost a match to Friedrich Amelung. In 1878–1879, he took sixth place.
From 1879, he lived in Riga where he worked as a teacher of German language at a gymnasium, and a translator of Russian literature into German. Among others, he published Schach-Humoresken. He was a president of the Riga Chess Club.