Dr. Alexander Zorin, IIBS Research Fellow for the period September – December 2010, holds a PhD from the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts (IOM), the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), St. Petersburg. In his Dissertation he studied Buddhist hymns included into the Tibetan Buddhist Canon as a genre. It was published as a book in September 2010. He also published two books of his translations of Tibetan poetry such as the collection of lyrical songs attributed to the 6th Dalai-lama and six hymns to Tara. From 2006 up to present, he is the academic curator of the collection of Tibetan mss and block-prints kept at the IOM RAS. In 2009, he produced the digital catalogue of the collection of thangka and tsakali icons kept at the IOM RAS in cooperation with four colleagues.