Yuri Nikolayevich Merzlyakov is a Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n diplomat, who was one of the 3 co-chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group

OSCE Minsk Group

The OSCE Minsk Group was created in 1992 by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe to encourage a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.-Founding and members:The Helsinki Additional Meeting of the CSCE Council on 24 March...

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Yuri Merzlyakov graduated from MGIMO in 1971 and Diplomatic Academy of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

The Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation also known as State Educational Institution Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, is a diplomatic institution established in 1934 to teach and train the diplomatic and...

 in 1979, and worked at various positions in the central offices of the Soviet and Russian Ministries of Foreign Affairs and diplomatic missions abroad. In 1998-1999 he held the position of the special envoy at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the head of the Working Group on the Caspian Sea

Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...

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Yuri Merzlyakov has a rank of the 1st class Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, speaks English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and Swahili

Swahili language

Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...

. He is married and has a daughter.

Mr. Yuri Merzlyakov was appointed on July 19th 2010 by the Russian President Dimitri Medvedev as new Russian Ambassador in Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

for replacing his colleague Nikolai Uspenski.