”Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding“.

Albert Einstein

     The vision of the program is to establish a long-term relationship between the young people around the globe as the vehicle by which to promote mutual understanding of shared problems, such as in peace, education, health, and child development.  

    It is said that an early form of chess was created in ancient India as a substitute for war, and it brought peace.  After the Arab-Muslim conquered the Persian Empire chess started to spread over the civilized world.  The Muslims who conquered the lands from India and Persia in the East to Spain in the West brought chess to the Western countries.  The chess route through various cultures and languages can be traced as following:  India - Persia - the Arabs - Europe.

     In a modern society, the best way to solve many problems around the Globe is to establish communication between the people from different countries, different religious, different cultures.  The game of chess may provide one of the unique opportunities to help to accomplish this goal.  Chess is one of a very few world-wide games that has the same rules and regulations everywhere in a world.  Millions of people play chess every day.  We would like to establish a dialog between these players to better understand their countries, cultures, religious, as well as establish friendship among them.

     World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov wants to continue to promote peace through the Chess for Peace initiative.  The initiative was first introduced on April 12th, 2005 at the World Champion Anatoly Karpov International School of Chess in the U.S.   Mr. Karpov has a long history of working for humanitarian causes, including his work with the International Association for Peace Foundations and as UNICEF Ambassador in Europe.

     The Chess for Peace initiative is designed to promote peace throughout the world by bringing secondary school students from different countries together to play chess and to establish lasting friendships, promote respect, discipline, and develop skills necessary to ensure that children develop into caring individuals.  

     We hope to have numerous political figures from different countries to assist with promotion of the Chess for Peace initiative and spend some time with young people, playing chess and introducing them to the global world.  In October 2005, former President and Nobel Prize winner, Mikhail Gorbachev, launched the Chess for Peace program.

The Anatoly Karpov International School of Chess in U.S. initiated the first exchange program with Moscow, Russia chess clubs. In Spring 2006 a group of 54 high school students and their parents, led by the Chairwoman of the U.S. Chess Federation and former Women World Champion, Susan Polgar, visited Moscow under Mr. Karpov’s invitation. 

    During the Fall of 2007/08 academic year, groups of students from different countries will compete with students from other countries via the Internet.  This will differ from the usual chess competition in that students will not necessary be chosen for their chess playing ability.  Personal information will be shared between the participants to foster friendships as well as gamesmanship.

     Finally, in March 2008, students from different countries will come to Chicago for the Chess for Peace Scholastic Convention where they will play chess, make friendships, and exchange information about their respective cultures.