On July, 5th I worked as a simultaneous English-Russian translator at the World Blitz and Rapid Chess Championships. For the first time the Championships were held in Astana.
To translate during the Chess Championship was a very unusual and interesting task, the topic is so much different from that of the conferences where I normally work.

To my surprise the conference that preceded the championship started in the Kazakh language which I don’t speak but understand somewhat. For the first couple moments I was expecting the translation into Russian but then I realized that it wasn’t provided. Which means I had to “improvize” and translate from Kazakh to English directly which I wouldn’t normally do but I thought it was better to go ahead than keep silent. Plus it wasn’t that difficult! There were questions about the winning fund, about guests’ impressions on Astana, about the championship’s participants.

The conference was brief but very interesting as I already said. The following day I came to the Championship as a visitor: I play chess myself and I couldn’t miss the opportunity to watch a real game! There were 8 games played at the same time and I had hard time following them all. Eventually I chose one and stuck to it.

It was a very enriching experience both professionally and personally. I am happy to have participated in the Championship in Astana!