How to convert strings from Cyrillic_General_CI_AS to utf8_general_ci in PHP

I need to import some data from MSSQL to MYSQL and I do this programmatically using PHP and PDO. The final lines of code that fetch one last field to be inserted to MYSQL look like this:

$s = $db->prepare("SELECT id FROM object_70912_ 
                         WHERE attr_76453_ = :num AND attr_70954_ = :attr_70954_");
$s->bindParam(':num', $row['building'], PDO::PARAM_STR); 
$s->bindParam(':attr_70954_', $row2['id'], PDO::PARAM_INT);

In this code $row['building'] comes from MSSQL and have this character set - Cyrillic_General_CI_AS, whereas attr_76453_ has this character set in MYSQL - utf8_general_ci. As a result, parameter binding does not work - I can not find appropriate values and this SELECT query allways returns an empty result set - and it is not right, since I checked it. So, I guess that to solve the problem I need to somehow convert data from Cyrillic_General_CI_AS to utf8_general_ci (or it may sound different in terms of PHP).

via Chebli Mohamed