Collecting Rent in the Tower of Babel

©By Pyotr Patrushev http://russiantranslate.org/

My life & work as an interpreter & translator

A beginning…humble in appearance…

but rich in experience: my village in Siberia…

Tower of Babel:a mighty

metaphor

God mixed up humanity’s unified language and scattered the nations.

He thus provided employment opportunities and travel to a band of dedicated professionals called interpreters and

translators…

I helped these people and many others find a common language…

Vanessa Redgrave NSW Governor General Marie

Bashir

Princess Margaret

Prime Minister Bob Hawk

President Putin

Dr. Andrei Sakharov

President Yeltsin

Prime Minister Rudd

President Gorbachev

Prime Minister Howard

Dr. Andrew Weil

I first learned the value of interpreting when I was interrogated by the Turkish secret service after my escape from Russia… You can get shot if someone misinterprets you… I learned Turkish in jail by converting a Russian-Turkish dictionary into a Turkish-Russian one during my 12

months of solitary confinement…

My first attempt at interpreting was in 1963 in Istanbul, between a Bulgarian nurse, a German doctor, a Turkish policeman & an English-speaking Dutch social worker… it was an emergency… helping a Soviet defector who was hospitalised…

They look happy…

I worked at the APEC meeting in Australia,

Sydney in 2007

Homeland Security

Don’t mess with these guys…

Or these…

Working inside the fence…

Why do we need fencesthis high to separatethe people from the

leaders??

Tete-a-tete… and a time for a quiet

joke … Sorry, I am not

allowed to tell you what the joke was

all about…

Ah, what the hell… might as well enjoy the view…

…Heads of State cruise Sydney Harbour under the watchful eye…

Languages in a Global World• Culture itself is becoming more global

• Languages keep you in contact with the rest of the world

• All jobs are becoming more international

• With multinationals it’s essential to be able to communicateacross the globe

• A language gives you the ability to communicate in the globalmarket

• Companies which buy and sell products all over the world needpeople with the ability to speak other languages and aknowledge and understanding of other lifestyles

Some of the conferences I interpreted at:

World Bank Red Cross United NationsChiefs of Defence of

NATO and AlliesOlympic and Asian

Games

Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation

UNAIDS ProgrammeG8 Development

Ministerial Conference

CCAMLR Scientific Committee

Antarctic Treaty

Space TreatyIntl. Association of

Anti-Corruption Authorities

Marine Ecology and Environment

Chefs de Mission Meeting, BOCOG

International Civil Service Commission

English Rugby Board Oil and Gas

Extractive Industries

Transparency Initiative

International Congress of Archivists

ICEM World Mining Conference

Economic and Social Commission for

Asia and the Pacific

Codex Committee on Fats and Oils

Animal and Pandemic Influenza

APEC Energy Ministers Meeting,

3R (Reduce, reuse, recycle)

Certified Translations

are very much in demand

Educational Diplomas/

certificates Art and Trade

Catalogues

Websites in Word

and HTML

Brochures and

Newsletters

Medical translations

Technical Manuals

CAD drawings

Trade agreements

Tenders

Passports

Birth Certificates

Legal contracts

Migration and Skills

Recognition

G20 Brisbane, 2014

Helping to get funding for clearing landmines in Cambodia…

A hot topic…

ESCAP, Korea, 2010Everything from transport to water supplies…

But it is the people you meet and work with that brighten your days… like these Russian and Australian vets…

You need to be productive and active in the languages that you interpret to and from…

Not just studying the dictionaries…

But through a broad life experience and study…

I translated Everyone Can Win,

one of the most copied and pirated books in Russia..

My published booksin Russian &

English…

A wildly imaginative book. Amazing tales...” Robyn Williams, ABC Radio National

Download these books on

http://www.pyotr-patrushev.com

Journalist & Broadcaster…• BBC in London - broadcaster, news reader and program

originator.• Radio Liberty in Munich, authoring a weekly Science and

Society Show for many years…• The Sydney Morning Herald, The Good Weekend, The

Australian, ABC radio and SBS radio and TV…articles, interviews and news features…

Listen to Pyotr’s interview on ABC Radio National

Working for “Aunty” in London…

Working for the BBC was a great experience… BushHouse was a true Tower of Babel, with 40 languagesspoken (recently savagely cut due to austerityprograms…)

Bush House in London, BBCThe canteen with

dozens of international dishes…

In-between jobs, you have to polish your hunter-gatherer skills…

Recuperating on Crete after a gruelling work as a sports journalist during Munich Olympics in 1972; the Games were disrupted

by a terrorist attack on Israeli athletes…

But… you have to keep really fit to work as a global interpreter…

An artist’s romantic impression of my swim out of Russia Oil painting by Slava Fiantsev

The reality was almost as exotic…

My swim from Russia to Turkey lasted 2 nights and was the only successful unaided swim across the Black Sea (for which I got sentenced to death on

charges of high treason and put on the KGB wanted list for 29 years)

Pyotr Patrushev - the man who swam from Russia videos:

VIDEO (Part 1)

VIDEO (Part 2)

VIDEO (Part 3)

VIDEO (Part 4)

With Dr.Andrew Weil in

the Arizona’s desert

Working at the Esalen Institute at Big Sur,California, with Dr Stan Grof (a pioneeringpsychedelic researcher), Dr. Andrew Weil (aleading holistic medicine guru in the USA),Russian scientists and shamans…

In Australia: the “Dolphin consciousness “conference; with water birth

pioneer Dr Charkovsky…

Interpreting during an open heart surgery at a Stanfordclinic with a Russian pioneering surgeon, Dr Vishnevsky

I cherish my time with people who inspired me…

With Dr. Andrei Sakharov, a Nobel Peace Prize winner in San Francisco

Connect with people who do good work in the world…

On a book tour in RussiaWith Helena Cornelius, conflict resolution expert

and the author of Everyon Can Win (Выиграть Может Каждый

скачать бесплатно)

For many years I worked as a trainer and facilitator in conflict management in Lebanon, Israel, Netherlands, the Russian Caucasus and Russia itself and contributed to the training theory.

And sometimes one needs to escape from it all in between jobs…for example…

to a remote farm in New Zealand

I later followed my dream of an interconnected world in the Silicon Valley, working for a pioneering corporation with clients like NASA, nuclear reactors, and resource companies…

The corporation (Infomedia Corp.) was started by a French-born astrophysicist

who was a UFO expert and who helped to create some

of the first military networks, the precursors of the Internet…

And 30 years later I am still a

computer freak…

I was taken off the KGB’s wanted list

and received a visa to Moscow for the

first time in nearly 30 years…

But Russia was freeing up and Gorby was calling me back…

Interpreting is not really such hard work … compared to some jobs…

Engage in some pretty serious stuff, like …

Interpreting at numerous Spacebridges between Russia and the US, linking US legislators, astronauts and

cosmonauts, soccer players, and… Chernobyl survivors…

I did not really enjoy working in abattoirswith Russian vets on lab testing techniques…

But sometimes you just have to…

Working with fisheries felt much better…

Hey, watch those aliens…

Until the fatigue finally gets you…

Thrills and spills…the sporting connection…

Sydney Olympics 2000

Sydney Olympics were the best... I wasimpressed by the volunteer serviceprovided by Australians who made visitorsfeel real welcome, Ozzie style…

First Youth Olympics Games 2010

Host city Singapore

Motto Blazing the Trail[

Nations participating 205

Athletes participating 3,531

Events 201 in 26 sports

BUDGET: U$284 million

Only youths aged between 14 and 18 years participated in August 2010 Youth Olympics

Interpreters are just a small part of the total budget…

Asian Games…..The Asian Games, officially known as Asiad, is a multi-sport event held every four years among athletes from all over the Asia

• Aquatics – Diving• Aquatics – Swimming• Aquatics – Synchronized swimming• Aquatics – Water polo• Archery• Athletics• Badminton• Baseball• Basketball• Board games• Bowling• Boxing• Canoeing• Cricket• Cue sports• Bowling• Boxing

• Canoeing• Cricket• Cycling

• Dancesport• Dragon boat• Equestrian• Fencing• Football• Golf• Gymnastics• Handball• Hockey• Judo

• Kabaddi• Karate• Modern pentathlon• Roller sports

• Rowing• Rugby union• Sailing

• Sepaktakraw• Shooting• Softball• Soft tennis• Squash• Table tennis

• Taekwondo• Tennis• Triathlon• Volleyball• Weightlifting• Wrestling

• Wushu

One has to learn about some pretty strange new sports …

Kabaddi match

You get lots of fireworks…

China Olympics 2008

The “real world” is never too far away … a tank at the Beijing Games Main Press Centre

The Beijing egg-shell stadium

Paralympics

Beijing 2010

People who really overcame huge obstacles in their life… I am in awe of them…

Michael Phelps - a swimming sensation

As a former swimmer I particularly enjoyed interpreting for Phelps and I

was present at the pool at each event, watching him win his 8 gold medals... in

Beijing in 2008.

Looking at this… interpreter’s lifeseems like endless fun…

Working in the desert during the Doha Asian Games. Read my story of this truly gruelling

jobAn interpreter’s story

The secret of success in the interpreting business…

You cannot get grateful clients unless you have good colleagues to work with…

And just as importantly, you will not get decent jobs unlessyou are working with a good professional conferenceorganiser (PCO). They are the “real estate agents” in theTower of Babel. The good ones are to be truly cherished –they are your guardian angels that will look after yourfees and conditions. The best are themselves practisinginterpreters.

I love the old Macao…

I worked in Macao with a casino tycoon

and a Kazakh oligarch…

But I never forget where I came from…An old water pump in the Siberian city

of Kolpashevo that has not changed during many decades of my absence

One still tries to have some fun in-between jobs…

In Bangkok, braving 45 degrees Celsius heat…

Observing the contrasts in the world we live in…

But at the end, you just want to get home…

To be with nature…

© Pyotr Patrushevwww.russiantranslate.org

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