A considerable volume of research on fertility in poultry, especially that associated with artificial insemination and related technologies, has been undertaken and published by scientists working in the institutes of the former USSR, now the CIS States. Researchers outside this geographical area have largely ignored this work, presumably because of the language barrier and limited accessibility of published material. That is particularly unfortunate, because in areas such as sperm cryopreservation the work of these institutes is clearly more advanced than in other countries. This paper sets out to redress the balance by reviewing artificial insemination research performed on various species of poultry, including semen extension, liquid storage and sperm cryopreservation, in the research institutes of the former USSR/CIS States.