Translation Forum Russia 2016. 1st part.

The latest Translation Forum Russia conference took place in Astrakhan on 1-3 July 2016. For those of you who haven't yet heard about this conference, it's an annual event which happens in a different city every time. The conference is universal in scope as it covers all the players on the market, including translation suppliers and customers, managers of translation agencies and translation departments, company managers, freelance and in-house translators and interpreters, teachers and trainers, producers of CAT tools and other translation-related software, translators’ associations, government bodies, and publishers. Its website is tconference.ru and you might want to bookmark it, just in case you haven't yet. ;-)

I will definitely need to make several posts about the conference as it is virtually impossible to share my thoughts and impressions in one message. It was my second conference, so I was happy to see the colleagues I met last year and those who I used to know only virtually thanks to social networks. I also met a lot of new people who are all helping the Russian translation market to grow and develop.

The first post is going to be about the city of Astrakhan. It's beautiful, and very diverse. It's an ancient city located on the Silk Route which used to connect the East and West. And you can literally see and feel this cultural symbiosis there even now. It's definitely a unique place which is worth visiting, even if it's just for a weekend.

Here are some pictures of the city for you.

This is the road which leads to the Astrakhan Balley and Opera Theatre. I actually lived not far from it. Here is a closer picture of the theatre.

Almost on the bank of the Volga river, there's a hotel. I could imagine seeing a building like that somewhere in Dubai, but it was a surprise to see it in Astrakhan.

The Kremlin there is beautiful. It's several centuries younger than the one we have in Vladimir, and it's not made of white stone, but painted white. It has fabulous carving and lots of beatiful details.

If you look closer you will see that the bell tower is falling. Our guide told us that an architect came there a couple years ago and helped to strengthen the foundation, so the bell tower should stay for a long time. By the way, the Kremlin in Astrakhan is one of UNESCO world heritage sites now.

But the most beautiful thing about Astrakhan is.. the Volga. Just look at it. Isn't it wonderful? The forest you see on the other side is actually an island, so there's more water on the other side. That side of the Volga you see below is for small boats. The other side is for barges and cargo ships.

Astrakhan is beautiful and diverse, even in architecture. Just look at the different types of buildings and houses.

What is Astrakhan famous for among the Russians? It's one of the best places for fishermen and those who like fish and caviar. The Astrakhan fish market is even included in the tripadviser list of the Astrakhan tourist sites.

So this is it for now. Next time (hopefully in the next couple weeks) I'll share more about the translation side of the trip, including the challenges of migration and uncommon languages in Europe, differences between the Russian and European translation markets, simultaneous interpretation as a martial art and more.

10 interesting facts about the Russian language

In my previous post I promised to follow with the interesting info about some other languages. So here are 10 facts about the Russian language which might be of interest to those who are studying it. If you would like to have this list in Russian, please contact me and I will send it to you by email. So, what do I find interesting about my native language? 1. Russian has about 500,000 words, but only 2,000-2,500 of them are used frequently. 100 most frequently used words make 20% of all written and oral speech. A high school graduate's vocabulary usually has 1,500 to 4,000 words. Those who have graduated from a higher educational institution normally have a richer vocabulary consisting of approximately 8,000 words. 2. It's compulsory for all astronauts in the international space station to learn Russian, so we can call it an international language of space :)

15 interesting facts about the English language

I prepared this list for one of my English classes. And then it dawned on me that I can share it with you, too! So here are 15 facts about the English language that I find very interesting. Hope you do, too ;) Rudyard Kipling was fired as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. His dismissal letter said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language. This isn't a kindergarten for amateur writers." No language has more synonyms than English.

Translation Forum Russia 2017: my report

A few days ago I came back from Translation Forum Russia which took place in Ufa, Bashkortostan . My daughter Delia went with me because she never visited Ufa before (neither have I) and because of the trip to the Southern Ural mountains we planned to take after the conference with a small group of colleagues. Ufa is not considered one of the primary tourist attractions of Russia, though I am convinced now that it definitely should be. Some pictures of the city (not all of the pictures are mine, some were made by the official photographer of the conference Elena Ekaterininskaya, our company CEO Fedor Kondratovich and some other colleagues): The bee is a symbol of the region as Bashkortostan produces the best honey in Russia. We saw installations shown below in different parts of the city. There were still covered because of the cold weather, but they will be full of blooming flowers as soon as the warm weather comes. The bee as we saw it That's what it

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