Then he would need some help from his brother Vishy An-and. :)

We have your name and address

should be Gefland of course

According to the chessplayers in India, there are 2 reasons:
1. The Indian chess federation treated him rather shabbily previously.
2. In the 2006 olympiad, the administrators mocked him for his high number of draws and poor performance.
Or at least thats what my friends told me.

I'm definitely hoping for a Russia-Bulgaria match.

Svidler is a far better performer than those two, but I think the Russians will keep the individual performances behind them now. The problem with Svidler was his handling of team championships, particularly the last Olympiad and particularly the last round. This time they want some stronger nerves, time will tell if they have got them.

You always show allergic reactions when someone is "negative" (read: critical and not 120% positive) about Carlsen, yet this post is as negative as can be about other players.

"they have never won with Kramnik on first board" - technically correct but quite misleading as it was hardly Kramnik's fault. His latest Olympiad results:
2006 - 6.5/9, TPR 2847 (best of all participants)
2008 - 5/9, TPR 2735 (not as impressive, but normally it should be enough to 'hold' board 1 and score on the lower boards)
2010 - 5.5/9, TPR 2794
And earlier you found it worthwhile mentioning that Kramnik skipped a few Olympiads many years ago, now you suggest this could be good news for Russia?

On the lower boards: On board 4, Tomashevsky won't face Tal Memorial opposition. You might need a solid player capable of grinding out a few wins - Tomashevsky and Jakovenko both fit that profile, Svidler only when he is motivated which isn't always the case. You write "the Svidler that has won the Russian Championship ..." - but THIS Svidler doesn't always show up in team events.

Whychess, translating a Russian source, just mentioned the reason for Svidler's absence: He was unable to play the Russia-China match which was used to select the lower boards. He must have had his reasons to skip an event in St. Petersburg (despite living there?).
http://whychess.org/en/node/2929

That would be awesome

+1 !!

Phewww, now I really couldn't agree more with you, Casaubon. It is a running gag indeed that the federations in questions didn't have the balls to join in to the French suggestion.

Wow! What a world record. Hope he will be there to visit and comment on some games.

I don't have a clue, but since only 8 rating points seperate him from Laznicka, this might be purely strategical. Navara can probably win more games on board two than he would on board one. And probably Laznicka is considered to have a slight edge in the fighting department? Maybe that's why they seeded him No. 1. Only the team can tell you.