President of Kyrghyzstan becomes Honorary Doctor at Moscow State University

President of Kyrghyzstan Askar Akayev has been awarded the title of an Honorary Doctor of the Moscow State University.

The awarding ceremony in the main building of the university on Saturday was attended by the rector of the university, Viktor Sadovnichy, and members of the university's Academic Council.

Sadovnichy said at the ceremony of presenting an honorary diploma, that the high award was given to the President of Kyrghyzstan for a great contribution to the development of science and education and also for promotion of friendly ties between the peoples of Russia and Kyrghyzstan.

In a reply speech Akayev said: "This is the highest award I have ever received in my life." Askar Akayev was born in 1944 in the village of Kyzyl-Bairak in the Keminsk District of Kyrghyzstan. In 1962 the future president entered the Leningrad Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics. Upon graduation in 1967, he received a qualification of an engineer mathematician for work with computers and remained at the post-graduate course of the institute. He defended a thesis of a Master of Sciences and in 1981 he won a D. Sc. degree in technology. The topic of his thesis this time, which he defended at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Engineering, was "Theoretical Principles and Methods of Calculating Holographic Systems of Storing and Transforming Information." A specialist in quantum electronics, holography and optical processing of information, Doctor of Technology, professor and academician of the Kyrghyz Academy of Sciences, Askar Akayev has over 150 published scientific works, including 15 monographs, text books and manuals.

He was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Kyrghyzstan, and in 1996 he was awarded the title of an Honorary Professor of the Moscow University.