Lindsborg ? More than 1,500 years after chess was used in India to peacefully settle disputes in provinces, former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev will come Kansas to kick off a modern-day peace movement.

The Chess for Peace initiative is the latest event to draw world-class players to the Lindsborg, a town of 3,200 people, since Russian immigrant Mikhail Korenman’s passion for the game turned this central Kansas town into an international chess destination.

“I want to go back to this idea that people can sit down with a chess board and talk about peace,” said Korenman, director of the Karpov Chess School in Lindsborg.

Gorbachev’s visit to Lindsborg on Oct. 29 will include a chess parade, a scholastic chess tournament and a match between former chess champions Susan Polgar and Anatoly Karpov. Gorbachev will give the keynote address that evening at Presser Hall on the Bethany College campus.

Gorbachev, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, was president of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991 and was credited with helping end the Cold War and Communist rule in Eastern Europe.

The October event launches a yearlong peace initiative that includes Internet chess matches between students from around the world.