High-Quality Russian Interpretation in Multilingual Environment: CITS Director Participates in UNIC Annual Seminar

For Russia’s linguistic schools, the end of the year is not only about finishing the semester, grading and summing up the educational results, but also a meeting at one of the most important sites to discuss T & I training – the annual seminar, organized by the UN Information Centre in Moscow (UNIC Moscow) together with the Linguistic Support Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Representatives of translation and interpretation schools, translation companies and language services of the UN and the MFA gathered for the 11th seminar on Multilingualism in the UN and Providing High Quality of Russian Interpretation in this Context after a forced downtime in 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants discussed such issues as staffing and specifics of Russian interpretation services at the New York headquarters and the UN offices in Europe; quality of interpreter training for international organizations in Russian universities; exchange of teaching experience; comparison of work plans and programmes; methodology, standardization and practical aspects of training. Mikhail Barilovich, Deputy Director of the Linguistic Support Department of the MFA Russia, summed up the results of 2022 and presented the trends and prospects of interpretation training from the viewpoint of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In addition, university representatives shared some news from the field; for example, CITS Director Uliana Saveleva told her colleagues about the results of our MA training, outlined current challenges in interpreter training and shared some plans for the coming year.  

Upon the results of the seminar, a few activities were outlined for 2023. For example, Natalia Kobleva, an editor of the Russian Translation Service of the UN Secretariat in New York, mentioned the experience of holding professional meetings with the teaching staff of CITS to improve their skills in the modules they teach and the possibility of organizing similar online seminars in the coming year