 While a student, he won several important international singing competitions, including first prize at the Mario Lanza (1994), Luciano Pavarotti (1995), and Leyla Gencer (1997) Voice Competitions.In the years 1995 and 1996 he had attended the summer conservatory program of the Music Academy of the West.He made his professional opera debut in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theatre as Schaunard in "La bohème".