UN Day at SCIT

The UN was officially founded on October 24, 1945, when the majority of signatories ratified the UN Charter. For SCIT the UN Day is not just a date in the calendar. SCIT and the UN have been long-time partners and the support of the Russian linguistic services played a key role in establishing a translation and interpreting school in St. Petersburg. Back in 2008 SCIT signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UN on cooperation in training language specialists. Since early days institutional translation and interpreting with focus on the UN documentation have become a permanent part of the SCIT training program. At present 20 SCIT graduates are employed as regular staff in the Russian linguistic units of the UN, and an even bigger number are listed in the roster and have worked on temporary contracts. In 2015 Herzen University was honoured to host the IV MoU Universities-UN Conference, and we are proud to have organized this event to the highest standards.

This year the UN Day at SCIT coincided with the visit of Dmitri Bloshenko, Senior Reviser in the RTS, UNHQ in New York. A series of intensive master-classes was conducted for three weeks of studies, and as early as in October the new intake of students had an opportunity to acquire a feel for the UN specifics. Supervised by Dmitri Bloshenko the students thoroughly ploughed through the texts on a wide range of topics. Besides, on UN Day Dmitri Bloshenko and Angelique Antonova, SCIT Deputy Director, were invited to give a lecture on Multiligualism and Linguistic Mediation at the UN at the Department of International Relations in North-West Institute of Management – a branch of Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.