Translator Astana

The other day I received a request for interpreting services for the interview with the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Mr. Karim Massimov. I was contacted by Fabio Ferlito, the Project Development Director of Business Focus, the London based communication agency aiming to publish a report on Kazakhstan’s growing economy in Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine.

We met with Fabio a couple of hours before the interview so that he could give me more information regarding the magazine and the interview itself. Having done so, we went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and we were then accompanied to the Government House where the interview was held.

The interview started and it turned out that the Prime Minister spoke perfect English so there was not much for me to do. I will not say what were the Prime Minister’s answers because this should be read on the pages of the Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine 🙂 But this was not the end of the day, the interview was followed by another meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also by a number of interviews with the Cabinet of Ministers which were still to be arranged.

I worked some more days with Fabio, more as an English speaking assistant rather then interpreter. I made some calls on his behalf, searched for the information that was only available in Russian, communicated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to arrange visa issues, etc.

Fabio’s visit to Kazakhstan (first visit but hopefully not the last one) coincided with the Astana Day which is July, 6th , so we had a chance to participate in this huge celebration with lots of people, music, light, shashlyk and overall fun.

Once the first steps were taken, Fabio left Kazakhstan and his colleagues came here to continue his work on the project which will probably last for a couple of months. Hopefully soon all those 4,7 million people that read BusinessWeek worldwide will be able to find out more about our country, its economy, political policy and reach resourses.

It is always nice to see people that I have already translated for coming back to Kazakhstan. This was the case with the representatives of INKOA company. They needed to specify several things regarding the future contract, so that means that I was translating at the Ministry of Agriculture again.

Similar to the previous time we worked long hours but our work was rewarded-we are now one step closer to singing the contract. This time I had to deal with technical part of the contract, such as the number of greenhouses, crop rotation, wind and snow resistance. I also translated from English to Russian and vice versa both legal and financial sides of the contract. And here was the tricky part: we were talking about the taxes which are very different in Kazakhstan and in Spain. I have learned a lot about Corporate Income tax, Branch Income tax, and others.

Being an interpreter is not easy, that I can be honest about. While there were 3 people, each knowing his or her sphere, I had to be an expert in all spheres. That means I have to know at least something about everything. That is why I enjoy my work so much. I really do.

So this assignment is over for the next month or so and hopefully next time I wil write about singing the contract!