… To translate old, handwritten records from Russian and Soviet archives, for a private investigator.

This should prove interesting.

I read the English three times before I gave up and read the Russian. At first I thought it was a simple typo, that the walls are “lead,” but then I bust out laughing when I read the Russian.

This, folks, is why native speakers need to at least proofread if not fully translate.

Sometimes I feel like this is what my Russian sounds like.

… I have to complete a series of technical translation projects.

I just received the first one, today. Entitled: “How to Become a Communist.”

Really? Really.

So apparently the overarching ‘theme’ of the projects is that they are going to all be documents put out by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.

Grand.

… was that?

I just completed a Russian-English translation. This was the end product:

The manager of a specialized organization may sign a declaration which turns over the control over accounting.

In memo No. 03-02-07/1-28 on January 31, 2011 the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation explains the procedure of signing tax and bookkeeping accounts, in the event that an LLC plans to transfer the management of its accounts to a specialized organization.

The memo notes that a plenipotentiary who has the signatory authority over tax returns may act as the head of a specialized organization, which maintains the tax and bookkeeping accounts of a taxpaying organization.

When filing to the tax bureau in this case, the tax return of the taxpaying organization ought to be applied as a document sustaining the manager’s authority of the organization that maintains the tax and bookkeeping accounts of a taxpaying organization. The signing of a tax return, as well as the document that sustains the proper authority of concrete persons who have signed the return, transfers the signatory authority to these persons.

Moreover, the memo recommends that the established procedures to complete tax return forms by the specific tax should be followed, including proposals providing for the confirmation of authenticity and the completeness of information in tax returns by the plenipotentiary of the taxpaying organization.  

This is the first, AND I HOPE TO GOD LAST, time I have had to translate something tax-related. I don’t even understand taxes in English. How the hell am I supposed to understand them in Russian, or, God forbid, Czech?

Lord save me if this is what I have to do to support myself.