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A seminar "Adaptive Technologies for the Disabled" took place in the Primorskiy Regional Library for the Blind within the framework of "International Education Week 2003". The event was attended by Pamela Spratlen, Consul General of the Russian Far East as well as local government officials and representatives of local universities. It marked another step Project Harmony and IATP, sponsored by the USA Department of Educational and Cultural Affairs, have taken in their efforts to have a positive impact on the situation of disabled in local communities.

As part of the seminar, local students with disabilities demonstrated the use of current adaptive technologies to those present. The library, which has been working successfully with the IATP program for several years, is one of the few places in Primorye where the disabled citizens have access to materials and technologies necessary to them. The impressive demonstration gave way to a lively discussion about the difficulties facing those with disabilities.
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Vyborg, located on the border of Russia and Finland, has a long history of cultural intermingling between Russians, Finns, Norwegians, and Swedes; and now Americans too. On 29 Oct. 2003 Project Harmony opened its 86th IATP Center in Vyborg and with it, a window to American culture and life. The ceremony, held in Vyborg's administrative headquarters, consisted of speeches from Lyudmila Dianova, Vyborg Region Biblio-informational Center Director; Sergey Shinov, Head of Vyborg Administration's Committee of Culture; David Siefkin, St. Petersburg Consulate Consul for Press and Culture; Zoya Zheldina, Leningrad Oblast Deputy Chairman Committee of Culture; Agnessa Gurina, Director of Regional Universal Academic Library (St. Petersburg); Irina Torova, Member of Vyborg City Parliament, Chairman of Budget Policy Committee, alumnus of the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs exchange programs; Michael Eckels, IATP Deputy Director; Ruslan Nozdryakov, IATP Regional Coordinator for the Northwestern Russia; and Irina Semenova, Vyborg's new IATP Center Coordinator. Siefkin's speech underlining the importance of understanding and respecting cultural differences and similarities was very fitting in the context of Vyborg's multi-cultural history.
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On 16 Oct. 2003, the 83rd IATP Center came on line in the Kemerovo Regional Academic Library (after Federov). The library surprised all by holding an online video-conference with the Tomsk IATP Center as part of the opening ceremony! While online video-conferences are common IATP practice, holding one during an opening ceremony is a new achievement-bravo! The Tomsk IATP community wished the Kemrovo contingent luck in its new endeavor. Another noticeable aspect of the ceremony was the presence of a quartet of classical musicians who melodiously charmed all those in attendance.
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In an atmosphere of bubbling champagne and excitement, the 81st IATP center was christened in Nakhodka. At 14:00 in the Nakhodka branch of Far Eastern State Academy of Economics and Management, with a lovely view of Nakhodka's bay, the ceremony commenced with a small presentation by Project Harmony's Far East Regional Coordinator Svetlana Laletina. Laletina was followed by Pamela Spratlen United States Consul General of the Russian Far East, Tara Rougle, Public Affairs Officer.

The traditional red red ribbon was cut by Spratlen, Michael Eckels, IATP Deputy Director, and Dean Belkin of FESAEM who beforehand, gave a motivating speech on the role of internet in society. Also on the Russian side, Yuriy Migunov, Director of FESAEM Nakhodka Branch; Victor Fersht and Vladimir Baturin of FESAEM's main corpus in Vladivostok; and Yuriy Ilin, Vice-Mayor of Nakhodka lauded the days activities with warm words smiles and handshakes.

The conference "Electronic resources in regional education" started with the presentation "Ethnic tour to Mari-El history" created by Mari El State University where IATP center is situated. The following officials attended the event and made congratulation speeches: Vitaly Makarov, rector of Mari-El State University; Leonid Garanin, Deputy of head of Mari-El Republic government; David Koenig, IATP Director; Galina Shvetsova, Minister of Education. The conference continued with speeches of main trainers in order to emphasize main goals and tasks: Sergey Grigoriev, Federal expert Union (Moscow), "Evaluation of educational resources"; Michael Morozov, Mari-El State University (Youshkar-Ola), "IT Education as a factor of innovation process of Education development". Then representatives from every participant city told about their innovations, problems, current work, shared ideas about electronic educational resources. Thus during the first day the main goal of the conference was stated, the main problems were identified in order to be solved during the conference.
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