The outset of the semester at the School was marked by a two-week series of master classes with Jonathan Clements, FAO staff interpreter. As in previous years, the master-classes targeted a set of skills: the students interpreted consecutively and simultaneously, to and from English and practiced sight translation. The complexity of the approach and the difficulty of the FAO materials multiplied by Jonathan’s perfectionist attitude proved to be an additional stimulus for the trainees to work hard. In turn, as a part of his Russian language enhancement program, Jonathan attended the lectures given by the School’s teachers and Russian language classes. He expressed gratitude to School student Vadim Ermolenko for his help in mastering Russian. We sincerely hope that Jonathan’s latest visit is another step on the way to sign the Memorandum of Understanding between the Herzen University and FAO.