Translator Astana

Last two weeks in August I worked as an English-Russian translator in the Nazarbayev Intellectual School during the training provided by the Cambridge University. The training provided the local high school teachers with an opportunity to discuss the new curriculum for all school subjects with the Cambridge trainers.

First four days I worked with physics teachers, next two – with geography teachers and the last four days with mathematics teachers. Throughout two weeks training we covered a lot of topics such as active learning, student oriented learning, types of feedback and question types, we discussed different resources that can be used during the lessons, we played games that are aimed at engaging students in the active work, we conducted scientific experiments with the materials available in the classroom.
All that time I felt like being back in high school myself: Newton’s laws, gravity, conservation of momentum, functions, sea salinity – all started coming back to me. We watched a short video on astronomy, on our position in the solar system, galaxies and new stars formation – what a great chance to learn something new!
Actually I’ve learned a lot about teaching techniques which was exceptionally interesting for me since I was teaching French in Astana to high school students and I could easily use these techniques and approaches in my work. I learned about different types of activities linked to the Bloom’s taxonomy that help students better understand, memorize, analyze and create knowledge. I have already heard about the Bloom’s taxonomy during my previous translation tasks when I worked in the National Testing center. I am always happy to realize I learn something new from my work and can use the acquired knowledge later on.
It is exciting to be a part of the team that is developing new school course programmes and is implementing it. It will be challenging for both teachers and students, especially since the teaching will be done in three languages: Russian, Kazakh and English, but challenges only make our lives more interesting, don’t they?

As the follow-up of the EXPO 2017 Astana candidacy promotion campaign I worked as a simultaneous translator in Astana at the Symposium which gathered 160 International Bureau of Exhibition’s delegates from all over the world.

Symposium was organized to show Astana to the delegates who will later vote for the city to host EXPO 2017. The idea was to explain in more details the theme of EXPO 2017 – Future Energy as well as introduce delegates to the Kazakh culture, to show places of interest in Astana. So the first day was spent in the palace of Independence where several panel discussions took place. I worked as a simultaneous Russian-English translator and I was lucky to work with simultaneous translators who came from Paris specifically for this Symposium. It was a great opportunity for me to learn something new about simultaneous translation. The day ended with a reception held by the Prime Minister. The guests could listen to Kazakh music and try out Kazakh food.

Next day was dedicated to sightseeing in Astana: Baiterek, Khan Shatyr, Palace of Independence, Pyramid and other places of interest in Astana were shown to the guests.

The voting will take place in Paris in November 2012, we are all looking forward to it and crossing our fingers to get the right to host EXPO 2017 in Astana.

I spent last two weeks in Paris in preparation for the General Assembly of BIE (International Bureau of Exhibitions) and for the reception hosted by the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan dedicated to the Expo 2017 bid.

I already worked as a translator during the Enquiry mission visit to Astana which aimed at checking whether Astana was able to host Expo 2017. So this was sort of a follow-up.
All the countries –candidates for Expo 2017 and Expo 2020 gave presentations to the members of the BIE and later that day the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan hosted a reception for 300 BIE delegates which was a part of the official procedure in the BIE. The reception was accompanied by the performance during which all delegates could learn more about the Kazakh culture through traditional dances, music, sings, customs.
I came to Paris two weeks before that day as a part of the organization team. Since more than 150 people were coming to Paris from Kazakhstan for the performance during the reception, the organization had to be perfect and required a lot of preparation. My role was not only to translate but also to communicate in French or English with hotel or reception venue stuff, to coordinate French-Russian assistants that were there to help the performers, to make sure that everybody had a hotel room, and a number of other organizational issues.
On the day of reception I was actually doing English –Russian and French-Russian translation between the BIE delegates, the Kazakh authorities, Ambassadors and other guests. At the same time I had a chance to enjoy a very interesting performance.
The following day there was a meeting between the BIE Secretary General and the Kazakh authorities where I provided English-Russian translation.
I was happy to be a part of the team in Paris as I could do more than just translation; I was given more tasks and more responsibilities which made the trip even better. That’s not to mention that there were plenty things to do and to see in Paris after work!
Next step of the bidding procedure – the international symposium to be held on June, 28-29 in Astana.

On May, 22nd after simultaneous translation at the Vth Astana Economic Forum I was invited to provide translation services at the Eurasia Foundation Central Asia Fund donor recognition event.

Eurasia Foundation Central Asia is a public organization that mobilizes public and private resources to help citizens actively participate in the creation of their own future. Eurasia Foundation is a private non-commercial organization that is aimed at increasing the civil responsibility, developing  private entrepreneurship, improving  education and healthcare systems in Central Asia.

The objective of the event was to express gratitude to the partners and  donors that sponsor all the social projects of the Foundation. Among donors there were: embassies of the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Germany, companies such as Chevron Munaigas, TengizChevroil, ExxonMobil,   World Bank, members of Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The representative of the Foundation was announcing donors and it was my task to translate that as well as the words of gratitude.

When the official part of the event was over everybody started socializing and getting to know each other. It was nice and almost relaxing translation for me after a very hectic day at the Astana Economic Forum.

On May, 17-18th  the fifth Islamic conference of the Ministers of Environment Protection was held in Astana where I was providing  simultaneous translation services.

The conference touched on the issues such as Islamic agenda for green development, strategy for disaster risk reduction, green economy in Islamic countries and many others.  During the discussion there was prepared a draft Islamic Declaration on Sustainable Development within the framework of the Islamic world’s participation in the Rio+20 Summit that will be held next month in Brazil.

The conference was very specific from the translation point of view: there were three interpreter’s booths with working languages being Arabic, English and French. As it is quite difficult to find Arabic-French or Arabic-English interpreters in Astana, Russian was used as the language “in between” which means that when there was an Arabic speaking presenter, first the speech was interpreted into Russian and then from Russian into both English and French. This setting resulted in interpreting mainly our colleagues-interpreters which is a big responsibility because it is one thing to provide translation to the “end user” and it is a different thing to say the words that will further be interpreted into other languages.  It is also true the other way around: interpreting a speaker directly is a challenge in itself but interpreting the translation is a double challenge: we had to rely completely on our colleagues because we had no idea what the speaker actually said in Arabic and if the Arabic-Russian translation was wrong or came with the delay, we repeated mistakes, too. In other words, welcome to the broken phone game!

Another difficulty was that each speech was started with the reference to Quran or with the prayers which we weren’t exactly familiar with so we had to quickly learn that, too.

But apparently things didn’t go wrong as they could have, the delegates understood one another, signed  the documents that they prepared and left our city to meet again in Rio in June.

On March, 30th -31st I worked in the Development Bank of Kazakhstan where OXFORD training conducted a seminar on loan restructuring. When I first heard of the seminar, I said to myself: “OK, here is an interesting challenge!”   And it was, indeed, because the topic can’t be called a very common one and it’s definitely not something they teach you how to translate at the university, so I had to figure that out myself.

The good thing about the seminar is that I was informed well in advance which gave me enough time to familiarize myself with the subject.  I was reading up on loans, debt crisis, world financial crisis, remediation management, austerity – it was quite a journey in which one article led to another one, one term to another one, one concept to another one.  I should also mention that I had a presentation for the seminar beforehand and I felt more or less fine when I entered the bank on the first day of the seminar.

The trainer for the seminar turned out to be a nice Hungarian lady who had more than 20 years of experience in working in the banking sphere.  Before the seminar I had a chance to ask her a couple questions to clarify some of the concepts that were still unknown to me and at 9.00 am we started our seminar.  First 15 minutes went very well – the trainer stack to the presentation which started off with some theoretical background on loans, portfolio and corporate client.  But already 15 minutes later participants started saying that they know the theory and they are more interested in its practical application.  That means the trainer had to change her strategy and improvise. This means I had to improvise, too. Participants  were happy they were no longer in “a school mode” with a lecturer but with someone who can actually answer many questions they have about loan restructuring and bad loan management.  Our conversation got immediately livelier and more interactive. I was glad, too, because for an interpreter it is also much easier to work with the audience that is interested and active rather than with people that hardly stop themselves from falling asleep.

Mrs. Esther (our trainer) talked about case studies that she was personally involved in, we learned that something a banker has to run a sausage factory and that a bank might have 65 bouchers  among its personnel – all this being a part of crisis management.  We also learned that it’s not always all about business, it’s about personal relationships, too, when it comes to bad loan management. We have learned other tricks, too. I always use the pronoun “we” because at any seminar I learn as much as other participants do and this is something I simply love in my job that is a source of my constant development.  Without the seminar I would have never looked up  “collateral”, “outstanding account”, “coverage”, and others.

Looking forward to more seminars and more things to learn!

This time I worked in the National Testing Center providing English-Russian translation at a series of lectures on evaluation in education.

The lecturer, Dr. Shonau, who came from the Netherlands, gave an overall view on the education system in the Netherlands, on the role of examinations and test in education. He explained different types of taxonomy models: that of Bloom and Romiszowsky, that are the basis for test constructing.  Lectures touched upon test types: multiple choice tests, open end tests, written and practical tasks and the ways how to best evaluate each of them. The whole day was dedicated to the final examination and its administration and evaluation criteria as it as done in the Netherlands. Participants: those who develop test items, put them together in a test and later assess the results, took great interest in that part since the final exam that combines both school leaving and university entrance exam in Kazakhstan will no longer exist. The discussions are held as to how change the format of the exam and what is the best practice in the world.

It is obvious that there are differences between the education system in the Netherlands and that in Kazakhstan but still there are similarities, too, and both countries win from learning from each other’s experience.

For a week I worked at the National Cardiosurgery Center where Siemens conducted training for surgeons. I have already interpreted a similar training in Karaganda last year so I knew what to expect this time.

Training was dedicated to the special system and its applications that are used in such medical examinations as electrophysiology and hemodynamics. We started with the general information about the application, with the ways of registering a patient in the system database, with different ways of measuring pressure in heart chambers and vessels, so in the beginning my translation was more IT related. However, when we  moved onto more specific questions such as catheter pullback sequence, translation became very specific in terms of medical vocabulary – atrium, ventricle, shunt, mitral valve,  superior vena cava, end diastolic pressure, etc.

The training was “hands-on”, i.e. hands on the patient, doctors were performing their usual daily procedures while learning about the possibilities of the programme. Over this week I have seen about 15 operations and now feel like a cardiosurgeon  myself 🙂 I have definitely learnt a lot about heart and the way it functions. I should say I am really impressed by the work that the doctors do every day.  Many of them are very young and yet so professional, you could trust them with your life and heart without any doubts!

First I would like to give some background information on the International Exhibitions Bureau (BIE) and how it is related to Astana and my work.

I am sure that many people have heard of the Universal Exhibition – for example the one for which the Eiffel Tower was built. Something similar but of a smaller scale (not a universal but a so-called recognized exhibition) is planned for 2017 and Astana is bidding to host this exhibition. Astana’s main competitor is Liege (Belgium). The decision on the host country will be made by the end of 2012 and in order to facilitate this decision the Enquiry mission visited both Astana and Liege to see if the cities are able to host several millions of visitors that will come to see the exhibitions. This is how 9 delegates of BIE found themselves in Astana in March, 12-16. It was my job to provide both simultaneous and consecutive translation during the visit. It goes without saying the programme was very tight so I will only mention events in which I was involved myself.

March, 11 – arrival day. Organizers of the visit decided to make it an “easy” day for the delegates and use some time before the official part of the visit to introduce guests to the Kazakh culture. That is why the first day was spent in Khan Shatyr, Pyramid and Palace of Independence where guests got a chance to visit the Ethnical Kazakh Village where the Kazakh traditions (including a traditional wedding, dances, jewellery, handcraft, etc) were shown.

March, 12 – beginning of the official programme

My main task on that day was to provide simultaneous translation during the presentations aimed at proving that Astana has enough capacity to host the EXPO 2017 – financial, economic, political.

March, 13 started with the meeting with the Minister of the Interior Mr.Kassymov at which the political situation in the country was discussed.

It was then followed by the excursion to the newly built TV and radio center where we were shown the future news rooms, studios and other facilities of the center.

After a number of presentations delegates left for a working lunch with the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Foreign Affairs where I was translating as well.

March, 14 was marked by the meeting with the President Mr. Nazarbayev who emphasized the political will to support the idea of EXPO 2017 being held in Astana. The delegates then visited Eurasian National university where a meeting with the Minister of Education and Science, students and academicians was planned. I graduated from this university 2 years ago and it was a very interesting feeling to come back to my alma mater not as a student but as a simultaneous translator. I continued my translation at yet another working lunch, this time with the Mayor of Astana.
March, 15 was another day of presentations on the future site of the EXPO and the future use of EXPO facilities since it is very important to invest in something that will last longer than just 3 months of the EXPO.
When I wasn’t in a booth doing simultaneous translation, I was down in the conference room to help with the consecutive English-Russian translation.

On the March, 16 together with the delegates I left for Almaty where a tour of the city and its surroundings by helicopter was organized. The official visit of the Enquiry mission finished with the internal meeting the results of which will hopefully have a positive impact on the final decision.

On November, 17^th I worked as a simultaneous English-Russian interpreter for ENRC seminar. The seminar was dedicated to a new change management strategy and to the ways of its implementation.

The seminar was interactive; it started with a simulation game: participants were split up into groups, each group being Employers, Employees or Consultants. Participants had a very fruitful discussion; they genuinely played their roles and drew some interesting conclusions.

The seminar was not too difficult as far as translation was concerned, it was quite a general discussion, however there were some specific business terms such as BBR (business benefits realisation), KPI and PPI (key performance indicators and process performance indicators), etc.

The seminar was mainly conducted in Russian with some presentations made in English, so for the most of the time it was Russian-English translation.

It was my first time working with ENRC (Eurasian National Resource Corporation), one of the major natural resources groups with mining, processing as well as logistical and marketing operations. As always, it was an interesting experience for me.

Last week the award-winning movie “The Artist” premiered in Astana and I was asked to translate it. Those who are familiar with the movie might raise their eyebrows – what’s there to translate in a silent movie? Well, there are subtitles here and there and it was my job to translate them while the movie was being shown to the audience. Ambassadors and other representatives of the international community of Astana showed up in the cinema and that is why the translation from Russian to English was needed.

As easy as it may sound, it was not easy at all: first of all, subtitles were shown for a fraction of a second so I had to read and translate with the speed of light. Secondly, it is a movie, not a contract where the translation is very dry and straight to the point. If an actor shouts (silently) “Oh my God”, I can’t simply render his words into another language; I need to act, too. At least a bit.

It was a quite unusual yet very interesting experience for me; I had to use all my translation skills: always be ready in case a new line of subtitles appears on the screen, read fast, think even faster and translate in a way that is stylistically relevant to the scene in question. Quite a challenge but a fun one!

It happened so that two weeks in a row I worked with the French companies in Astana and I decided to combine these two assignments into one article.

First I worked with Air Liquide, a leader in air gases production, doing both French into Russian and English into Russian translation. We had some meetings in KazMunaiGas, Kazakhstan’s national oil and gas company, and we discussed future business opportunities.

Then I worked with Groupe Euralis, one of the most important seed companies in Europe. Mr.Campion, Export Director had a meeting with the Ministry of Agriculture for which he needed a French-Russian interpreter. He made a presentation on the general Groupe Euralis structure and then moved onto a more specific field – company’s seeds products, such as corn, sunflower, rape-seed, sorghym and soybeans. The representatives of the Ministry answered questions regarding Kazakhstani legislation base as far as the use of foreign seeds is concerned, they also explained the procedure for foreign companies to register in order to be able to introduce their products in Kazakhstan.

Hopefully both meetings will lead to a mutually beneficial partnership for Kazakhstan and the French companies.

For two weeks in July I worked as an English speaking assistant/English translator for the National Geographic journalist John Lancaster and photograph Gerd Ludvig. National Geographic will produce an article on Astana so the journalists were sent on “a field trip” to find out about Kazakhstan’s culture, traditions, history as well as picture a modern life of the Kazakhstani society.

I was very excited about the assignment that I had: I did all the administrative work such as fixing appointments, getting entrance permissions, finding the right people to talk to, but also I did things I wouldn’t otherwise have done: attending traditional Kazakh weddings, participating in a ballet performance rehearsal, interviewing dancers, builders, newly-weds, getting into a construction site, etc, etc, etc.

I have learned a lot about the right way of taking pictures: when, where, from what angle and with which lens. I’ve also learned that a good picture requires hours and sometimes days of preparation. For a photographer it is essential to be in the right place in the right moment.

The article will presumably be published in March but I have already read some bits and pieces and I have seen some of the selected pictures. I cannot reveal much but I can say one thing: I simply love it! The pictures are stunning. Having seen the pictures, I now look at my own city with a different perspective.

I am not sure if the National Geographic magazine with the article on Astana will be available in Kazakhstan but the article will be also posted online. Can’t wait to see the complete article!

It was a great honor for me to work as a Russian-English translator in the Residence of France where Ambassador of France to Kazakhstan hosted a friendly “Ambassadors’ sandwich club”. Six Ambassadors met with the Member of Senate to discuss some topical issues. Ambassadors emphasized and Senator confirmed the close economic and political ties of Kazakhstan with European and Asian countries. They discussed Kazakhstan’s development over the last 20 years and the progress that the country has made in transition from the planned economy towards a market one.

It was a very friendly discussion where everybody was free to express his opinion; views were shared on the major industrial projects in Kazakhstan, on the implementation of new technologies, on the use of foreign manpower, on the joint projects that Kazakhstan and its foreign partners have, etc.

Ambassadors also touched upon the upcoming Parliamentary elections that will be held in January 2012. Congratulations were exchanged on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

On October, 3-5 I was in Karaganda and provided interpreter services in the regional cardio surgery center where Siemens experts held a training for doctors – cardio surgeons. Two days before the assignment I was given a 720 pages book where I found terms like ECG waveform, ablation, hemodynamics, NBP (non-invasive blood pressure), and others.

First day started at 6am when I met with Siemens experts who would be conducting the training and we started our 3 hours car drive to Karaganda. At 9 am we entered the cardio center and met doctors, all of us were given gowns and shoe covers which was a reason for some laughs and we started our training. Our main focus is the equipment for electrophysiological studies, a so-called Sensis. Doctors in the center have worked with the equipment for a year so they were more than just familiar with it, still they had some questions and problems to be solved. Which is exactly what we came here for.

Once I got my head around all the curves and leads that exist in EP – electrophysiology, I felt much better then when I first heard about the upcoming translation- a mix of medical and technical translation, which is quite something, I should tell. But… it’s never time to relax because next day it turned out I would be interpreting during the operation. ‘’Oh my god!”, I said to myself and “yes, no problem” – to the experts. I’ve been in different places because of my job but never in the operation room where –what a surprise!- a person is being operated on.

First come the nurses, they prepare a patient for the operation, next one is the anesthesiologist, then the doctor, then us. Operation starts and lasts for more than 2 hours. I will skip the details but the main goal of the operation is to introduce catheters into the patient’s heart, to find a part of the tissue that instead of being an isolator conducts heart’s signals and to burn- “ablade” that part. By the end of those 2 hours everybody is tired but –just like in a movie- the surgeon is smiling and saying “Operation was successful”, then we all smile and go for a coffee. The training goes on.

Next day was the last day of the training and I am already on my way back home because my next assignment awaits me in Astana on the following day. It was a really good trip, I learned a lot and met nice people and now I am looking forward to the next training which hopefully will take place in Astana in December.

On September, 16th I had a simultaneous translation at the International Accreditation Conference organized by the National accreditation center in Astana.

It was the first conference of this kind held in Astana, international experts from the US, Australia, UK, Germany and other countries came to the conference to share their experience in the field of accreditation.

The main topic of the conference was the establishment of the unified accreditation system, so that a good produced in one country and accredited and certified in accordance with the international standards could be accepted in other countries. Such a system would significantly reduce time and money that a producer spends on accreditation and certification and it is extremely important within the newly established Customs Union.
Kazakhstan and its NAC recently joined ILAC and should now meet all the requirements of the organization. Conference was interesting for all the participants, they were actively asking questions and making comments which is always a good sign.
I truly enjoyed this short but productive conference.

On August, 24th -26th there was another Medical Forum with participation of Koreans doctors for whom I translated from English to Russian. For 3 days patients with different diseases came to see the doctors and to get acupuncture treatment which is the area of expertise of these doctors.

Altogether we treated over 200 patients, among these patients there were people with spine diseases, neck pain, high blood pressure, obesity problems, etc.

My task was to facilitate communication between doctors and patients, to translate patients’ complaints and doctors’ prescriptions. I’ve dealt with a great number of medical terms, such as duodenum, spinal rupture, protrusion, etc. I’ve learned a lot about acupuncture, too. Also doctors gave some advice to patients regarding the best position for writing or working with computer, holding one’s posture. It’s very important not to have too much pressure one one’s spine otherwise it can lead to many problems. All this information seems to be well –known but in reality not many people practice it.

Patients were treated for 3 days in a row and the results were obvious. Those who had acute pain and couldn’t walk straight on the first day, were able to walk and bend easily on the third day. People who were waiting in the hall started making stories about acupuncture being a magical treatment. Of course it’s not about magic, it’s all about releasing the right muscles in the right spot. It’s true, though, that it helped many people so everybody started wondering when the acupuncture medicine office would be open in Astana. So far there is no exact information on that.

This assignment gave me a chance to be in a doctor’s shoes, running from one patient to another, treating over 150 people a day, not having a 10 seconds break. Being a doctor is very honorable but I guess I don’t regret being an interpreter J

Recently I received the following comment from an interpreter who is just starting his career:

Hello, Miss Snezhana. i want to be a translator and if possible, an interpreter. Since i am interested in Russian, i was surfing the web and came across your webpage. i am wondering about two things
1 being a male is a disadvantage as interpreter?
i mean people prefer females over males?
2. what is the routine as a professional interpreter? what is your schedule like?
like you get up, and practice your langauges? i mean i want to know your daily practice as a proffesional interpreter
Thank you,
Gyung

Instead of describing my daily routine and decided to describe one week of my professional life as an interpreter, from September, 5th through September, 10th, 2011

Monday: first day of simultaneous translation at the international conference on fusion energy. How did I prepare? I had a number of thesis that I looked through, I also read up on atom, nuclear physics, Rutherford and his experiments and I prepared a glossary. As always, speakers didn’t stick to their presentations so it was a pure simultaneous translation: I translate what I hear. The main topic of the conference – TOKAMAK –toroidal chamber with magnet coil.

Tuesday: second day of simultaneous translation at the international conference on fusion energy. I am getting comfortable with plasma-wall interactions and berilization process in a vacuum chamber. Topics are getting from general to more specialized.

Wednesday: third day at the same conference. Fusion, fission, lithization, tungsten – it’s just a small part of the discussion.

Thursday: consecutive translation at the Ministry of Health. Last minute call, so no preparation from my side. We speak about unified health information management system in Kazakhstan. Terms: DRG (diagnosis-related groups), HTA (health technical assessment), clinical content, etc. More of this next week.

Friday: consecutive translation for the USA Embassy Military Cooperation department. No comment on this one.

Saturday: simultaneous translation of a lecture on geopolitics for high-level officials from the Ministry of Economics and “Samruk Kazyna”. No materials available before the lecture, so again no preparation.

It’s just happened so that this week I didn’t have the materials to prepare for the meetings but normally I try to get hold some information and make myself familiar with the subject. Especially if it is a simultaneous translation.

Do I “get up, and practice my languages”? No, I don’t. I just don’t have the time for that. I get up and work. Work is the best practice ever.

As for the question whether people prefer male interpreters over females or vice versa, honestly I don’t know, I’ve only been a female interpreter.
So that’s how my week passed. After a short weekend there comes another week with both consecutive and simultaneous translation. No time to relax!

I hope my answer was useful to you, Gyung, and I wish you success in being an interpreter. It’s not easy, that’s true, but it’s lots of fun, trust me!

September, 19th-23rd I spent in Almaty providing interpreting services at the 17th Central Asia international mining exhibition. I worked with the CEO and a sales manager of the Celik Granul, a Turkish company that produces low carbon steel shots for sandblasting and shotblasting.

I flew from Astana Monday early morning and the first two days we spent preparing for the exhibition, we set up our stand, located the catalogues, got to know other exhibitors. On Wednesday the exhibition started and a constant flow of visitors started immediately.

Visitors were from different walks of life: company owners, PR specialists, students, journalists, distributors, etc. Every time somebody came up to our stand I explained why low carbon steel shots are better then high carbon steel shots, why shots can be used for surface cleaning not just ones but several times, what is the better shotblasting equipment for that, and so on. We had a very colorful stand and we for sure attracted many people.

After the full working day at the exhibition center we were invited to a nice reception where all the exhibition participants could meet and connect in an informal way.

One day of exhibition passed after another and here I am at the airport again. Translation in Almaty is finished but next day more work is ahead in Astana!

I just came back to Kazakhstan from my trip to Europe and on the same day I left for Aktau, a city on the Caspian Sea, to provide simultaneous translation services to the Ministry of the Environment Protection of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Conference of the Parties to the framework convention of the marine environment of the Caspian Sea was held in Aktau with the participation of all the Caspian littoral countries: Azerbaijan, Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Turkmenistan and UN Secretariat.

On the first two days there was discussion at the level of experts and working groups that touched upon protocols to be signed by the Ministers of Environment Protection of the five countries. Discussion were hot and lasted till midnight or even longer. But it was worth it: by the end of the third day the Ministers signed a protocol which from now on will be called the Aktau Protocol. This is the first protocol that was singed over the last eight years of work so everybody who participated at the Conference was very proud of this accomplishment.

After the signature of the Protocol there was another meeting between the Mayor of Mangystau oblast’ (which is where Aktau is situated) and the UN representative in Kazakhstan. I was asked to consecutively interpret during this meeting. The meeting was short but fruitful and its outcome is that there is a possibility for cooperation between the UN agencies in Kazakhstan and the region.