The internship at the Russian Foreign Ministry

December. While some people are getting ready for the New Year celebration, master degree students of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation continue to enrich their knowledge. Very recently, they’ve come back from their 2-week internship at the Russian Foreign Ministry Department of Linguistic Support. The internship was rather efficient: the students had a chance to meet not only leading specialists in interpretation and translation who worked with Boris Yeltsin, Dmitry Medvedev, Vladimir Putin and other top public officials but also the MGIMO Vice-Rector and Vladimir Fakov, leading interpreter and translator of our country, who gave lessons to the students. The girls saw the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from within, translated authentic documents that ministers deal with, spent a day in booths in the Diplomatic Academy under the supervision of Mr. Lakeev and, moreover, learned more about the UN Main Representative Office in Russia.
The internship went very well and the specialists gave valuable recommendations to the students. Apart from English, girls had a chance to work with other languages of their combinations. For instance, Liliya Petrova, a second-year master degree student spent several days with the President’s translators from the Turkish Department where Lilya translated texts on different subjects from Turkish into Russian.
As the main outcome of the internship, according to the test results, some of the students were invited to work in the Foreign Affairs Ministry after their graduation that will take place in summer 2015.

“The internship was very intense and the girls didn’t have a spare minute. For these two weeks they got the idea of how the Interpretation and Translation Services work. The work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has its own specific features the interpreter should perceive and accept to be employed by the Ministry. The true professionals worked with our students; they helped, explained, guided and supported them. When you look at them, you realise that you have a long way to go to achieve the same level.
At the same time, a group of the students from the Farsi Department of the Astrakhan State University had their internship at the Ministry as well. Graduates who know Farsi came to Moscow to take a test at the Second Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. The girls succeeded in this test, which consisted of translation of texts from Farsi to English, and met diplomats that they had a chance to speak with and learn about the nuances of working in the sphere of diplomacy and translation. Now our candidates are looking forward to employment either at the Ministry main office or in the foreign offices” – says Maria Avdaseva, a graduate of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation and supervisor of the students’ trip.
The students thank their teachers and experts, who worked with them during those 2 weeks, and also Olga Egorova, Director of the Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation, for an opportunity to gain such experience.