Switzerland
2006 Christmas stamp, Ukraine, showing St. Nicholas and children.
One of the most common ways for chess historians to trace when the board game chess entered a country is to look at the literature of that country. Although due to the names associated with chess sometimes being used for more then one game (for instance Xiang-qi in China and Tables in England), the only certain reference to chess is often several hundred years later than uncertain earlier references.
The earliest dates for strong references include,
English
Română