Translator Astana

As a French-Russian translator in Astana I worked for one week with two French journalists Jean Marc Gresta and  Julien Monteaux,  who represented the company Science frontieres. They came to Astana  in order to make a film about Kazakhstan.

So we met in  Astana International Airport where I came to pik them up and then I helped them to find their hotel.

The main part of the work started next morning, when we met in order to get some things settled, such as to get the accreditation, to make several appointments and to confirm the date and the time of the interview. Once this has been done, we were off to the city to film some sightseeings of Astana. We worked  both on the right and left banks of Ishim river, made pictures of Presidential palace, Baiterek, Parliament, old city square, etc. We visited some museums, one of which is the first President museum.

Next day we left for Borovoe, since Jean Marc and Julien wanted to film “la nature savage”- wild nature that is.   I did the organizational part: I found a driver and  instructed him about what places we should visit. So we spent a whole day climbing on the hills and stones, filming lakes with waves and struggling with icy wind.  There was more work to do in Astana.

The biggest thing of their stay in Astana was the interview with Mr.Talgat Musabaev, the kazakhstani cosmonaut. Mr.Musabaev shared with us his experience, told us about the plans for development in the spacial industry and also sent his warmest regards to the French  cosmonauts he once worked with.  He used a lot of space related terminology and this was a challenge to me since I had to get it all correctly. In general the interview had a very positive energy and translation in such atmosphere was a pleasure for me.

We also attended some other events, such as World Touristic Organization, that took place in Astana in the beginning of October, met with different people and filmed more of Astana. I also got to translate the questions to our  President prepared by Jean Marc.

So this is how that week passed. I went to the airport again-this time to say goodbye to Jean Marc and Julien.  It’s amazing how can one get used to each other over such a short period of time. That week was really hectic but full of new people, new places and new challenges.

FOLLOW-UP:

in April 2010 I was informed that the film on Kazakhstan is ready and is available on Terre TV.  They also mentioned  my name in acknowledgements in the film credits and that was a very nice surprise for me!

Translation of excursions in Astana is a great deal nowadays as not many tour guides speak English, French or any other foreign languages. The situation will probably change in the course of the next couple years as a new generation is getting more and more multilingual and there won’t be any need to translate what the tour gide says.

Last summer an international economic forum was held in Astana that was the reason wny there were many foreigners in Astana. After an official part of the forum the guest were eager to explore our city and to find out more about its history. Our small team (a bus-driver, a russian speaking tour guide and me) drove up to the hotel where all the guests stayed and we started our excursion stright away.

There were guests from CIS who spoke russian and those from USA, India and China who needed russian-english translation so we arranged the process of excursion this way: first a tour guide Elena gave us some information about this or that sight-seeing in russian and after a while I did the translation.

So we started with a new part of the city, drove by Baiterek (a symbol of Astana), went to the Pyramid (a very famous building made by a Normann Foster’s project), saw a residence of our president Nursultan Nazarbaev, crossed the river and found ourselves in an old part of Astana, came up to its historical center and continued our excursion at the museum of the first president of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

It was my first translation of an excursion so it was very useful that I prepared for the work: found out lots of information about our city and translated it into English. That was also very good that just couple months before the excursion I had a course „Theory of interpreter’s note-taking“ and I was ready to manage with all figures, names and places that should either be remembered or written down in order to be able to make an adequate translation.

Our excursion was very interesting and productive: even I who was born in Astana learnt many new things about it, so did the guests I hope. I also hope they really enjoyed our city and will come to Astana over and over again.