As a freelance translator and interpreter based in Yekaterinburg, Russia, I have learned some invaluable lessons during my career, and I feel that my mission is to help my peers be better equipped to work from a position of dignity and confidence and realise that ours is the best profession in the world. I do that in several ways:

• through everyday work in my specialist areas — design, architecture, travel, international relations, psychology, and special education.
• through coaching — I teach a hands-on workshop for interpreters with a focus on voice techniques and real life cases;
• through volunteering for a charity facility promoting rights of people with mental disabilities.
• through writing and publishing — I keep a professional blog; and my colleagues and I have compiled and published a book of translators’ stories “The Patchwork Quilt”.
• through speaking at conferences and delivering webinars.
• through dreams — my colleagues and I have plans to publish a second edition of The Patchwork Quilt and to start an educational project.

My greatest dream is to see the day when all language professionals view themselves and are viewed by others as a critically important factor of wellbeing in our rapidly changing world and are respected and rewarded accordingly.

(All links open pages in Russian)