Rossiyskaya Gazeta was one of RPK’s first clients. Surprisingly, one of the main reasons was because the last name of its deputy CEO starts with an «A.» As we were getting ready for our first large-scale forum, someone came up with a crazy idea to get in touch with thousands of its participants to find out if anyone needed extra interpreting or translation services. We never got beyond the top of the alphabet, but we did get a client!
Rossiyskaya Gazeta is a media holding that has been operating since 1990. In 2007–2017, it was responsible for an international project called Russia Beyond the Headlines, or RBTH, which was later handed over to RT.
About Russia — with love
Rossiyskaya Gazeta had just started developing a project called Russia Beyond the Headlines, which aimed to give people in other countries an idea of what Russia was really like, not just what was shown on the news. Journalists would write articles about Russian culture, history and economy. We would translate these articles into different languages, and well-known foreign media outlets — including The Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Washington Post, El País, La Repubblica — would publish them.
The project was steadily growing. At first, we translated from Russian into Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, English, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, and Spanish. The translations were performed by native speakers (who were, of course, professional translators) and then revised by Russian editors. That’s the best way to do it, because even those who have a perfect command of Russian and have lived in this country for a long time, may often get confused by the words that our press tribe love to use.
Soon, journalists from abroad joined the team. This meant that we had to translate some of the texts from French into Portuguese or from English into Italian, etc. And even from all those languages into Russian, because we Russians are also interested in what the foreign press says about us!
Sometimes our translators and editors even wrote articles about the Russian language for the project. In addition, Russian Translation Company organized simultaneous interpretation and technical support at the annual conference for partners of the international project run by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, as well as at other events.
A Dialogue with the States
Rossiyskaya Gazeta co-organized the annual U.S.—Russia Fort Ross Dialogue. The first was held in San Francisco, CA, in 2012 to mark the 200th anniversary of the Russian settlement Fort Ross in California. Starting in 2017, the conference was held twice a year — in Russia in the summer and in the United States in the autumn — and attended by members of the scientific community, cultural figures, and businessmen. Its purpose was to strengthen relations between the two countries based on civil diplomacy.
At the request of Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Russian Translation Company provided language support at three conferences held in Russia: in Izborsk, Veliky Novgorod, and Vologda. Three Russian—English linguists were usually required for the conferences, including two simultaneous interpreters and one consecutive interpreter. In addition, RPK provided equipment for 200 participants, technical support, audio recording and transcripts in both Russian and English.
Photos
We are masters of the word, after all!