5 Facts About Mikhail Gorbachev

Wednesday night. Tickets for his talk vanished within hours; an estimated 3,600 people are expected to turn out for his talk.

I'm pretty jazzed about it. It's been a few years since I covered someone of his stature (maybe Bill Clinton in 2008, when he campaigned for his wife in Stroudsburg).

Here's five things about him that you may not know.

1. He wishes he'd begun his reforms earlier. In an interview with The Guardian in August, Gorbachev listed some regrets about his time in power, and said he wishes he had abandoned the Communist party and started his own political party.

2. His religious faith -- or rather, absence of it -- was the subject of speculation. In 2008, Gorbachev visited the tomb of St. Francis in Italy, prompting some media outlets to characterize this as an acknowledgement that he'd been a closet Christian. But Gorbachev said he remained an atheist.

3. He supports the Occupy Wall Street movement. Speaking at the University of Wyoming last week, Gorbachev said: "They protest against poverty, against injustice, against inequality, against corporate greed. And I've been there. At Wall Street, I would be with them."

4. He also also told that Wyoming crowd what the world's number one issue is. Access to clean water. Gorbachev wrote a New York Times op-ed about water rights last year.

5. He appeared in a Pizza Hut ad. It ran in 1997. Gorbachev only agreed to do it in proceeds he got from appearing in the ad went to the non-profit that bears his name.