Arguably, to be born in Russia and to grow up with a foundation of what fabled Scandinavia has to offer in terms of history and culture may prove to be more than enough to fill anyone’s formative years. Yet graduating from St. Petersburg University with a double MA (Journalism and Languages) in the latter 80s provided substantial exposure to political turmoil, even if one chose to transition from the exciting job of a newspaper reporter to an equally promising, if less dangerous, academic career. The coup of 1991 simply left Russian citizens hoping for a better country with no choice, other than dedicating some part of their lives to the promotion of the ideals they wanted to realize.
Thus, twelve-plus years of professorship at one of Europe’s oldest mining colleges were also filled with projects aimed at building a more open, more unified, and safer world, from something as simple and unsophisticated as designing and printing city maps packed with educational and humorous references to their past to something as challenging and complex as uniting 400 writers, translators, booksellers and publishers from the entire Baltic region, putting them on a cruise liner, and sailing off with them onto a three-week, first-ever International Writers’ Congress. Some of this work continued even after it became painfully clear that those efforts, for the most part, had failed.
His arrival to the US in 1999 was a major turning point—specifically because of joining the American Translators Association (ATA). It provided for new opportunities like working at the Center for Citizen Initiatives for the US Department of State-sponsored Productivity Enhancement Program. At times, when the background in mining and engineering was in greater demand and the projects that were offered appeared to be purely for-profit (having nothing to do with raising public awareness or achieving world peace), forces of nature would intervene to prove that there is always a possibility—and a need—to have these two goals combined, like working for an Exxon/Mobil contractor in Houston during the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Capitalizing on his substantial expertise in mining education, translation, localization, and publishing, Language Freedom, LLC was incorporated in Florida in 2011, providing said and certain other associated and narrowly tailored professional services to many satisfied clients.
