I personally got a vibe that chess is an “upper-class elite thing” just because of the chess books section at my local bookstore. 30-40€ for a book on just one particular aspect of strategy, and there are dozens of books out there to read.

Yes, I know that players are not advised to read such books until they are relatively high in the rankings, but the prices of those books do tell you that even if a local chess club is open to everyone regardless of class, if you want to continue to progress in the game you’ll have to shell out money.

(Of course, things are easier these days because virtually every chess book every published has now been scanned and uploaded to filesharing communities. I get the impression that the Russian chess community, most of whom either cannot obtain or cannot afford the books, have come together in a joint effort to get this done.)