Under the leadership of its Rector, Alexei Semenov, the Moscow Institute of Open Education has provided in-service training to about 30, 000 teachers annually for the past 16 years.

UNESCO: Education

Professor Semenov has developed exemplary programmes to enable teachers to include ICTs in their work, as well as textbooks and teacher guides used widely in the Russian Federation and other countries.

UNESCO: Education

He remained in the post until the republic's first direct presidential elections in 1999 when Vladimir Semenov, a Karachay and former commander of Russian ground forces, defeated the late Stanislav Derev, a Cherkess businessman.

BBC: Karachay-Cherkessia profile