Russian reaches us from far more than one country. Marriages, property purchases, residence files, company formations and Soviet-era school records all arrive in Russian, whether the holder is from Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Georgia or Armenia. Since 1992 we have prepared these for Turkish notaries and public offices with sworn translators.
SWORN RUSSIAN TRANSLATION IN ISTANBUL
THE PATRONYMIC IS NOT A MIDDLE NAME AND NOT A SURNAME
A Russian name has three parts: given name, patronymic and surname — Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov. The patronymic is formed from the father’s name and is a legally required element of the record; it is not a second forename and it is certainly not part of the surname.
Turkish civil records have two fields. When the three-part name is squeezed into them without care, the patronymic ends up glued to the surname, and from that point the person’s name in the Turkish file no longer matches the passport. Every later document — title deed, residence card, marriage certificate — inherits the error.
We map the name to the Latin spelling in your passport, show the patronymic as what it is, and keep the same form across every document in the file.
HUSBAND AND WIFE APPEAR TO HAVE DIFFERENT SURNAMES
Russian surnames change form with gender: the husband is Petrov, the wife is Petrova; Ivanov and Ivanova; Sidorsky and Sidorskaya. On the documents these look like two different families, and Turkish offices reviewing a marriage or inheritance file regularly query it.
This is grammar, not a discrepancy, and we say so explicitly in the translation so the reader does not have to guess.
Transliteration is the other recurring trap. There is no single way to put Ж, Щ, Ю or Я into Latin letters, and the standard used in Russian passports has been revised more than once — so a diploma issued in 2005 and a passport issued last year can spell the same person differently. We take the passport spelling as the anchor and note the variant, rather than silently choosing one.
APOSTILLE AND SOVIET-ERA DOCUMENTS
The Hague Apostille Convention has applied to the Russian Federation since 31 May 1992, and it is in force for Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia as well. For all of these an apostille is enough and consular legalisation is not required. The apostille goes on the original document, not on the translation.
Soviet-period documents need one extra thought. A certificate written in Russian but issued in, say, Tashkent or Tbilisi before 1991 is a document of the successor state, and the apostille has to be obtained there — not in Moscow. If your certificate is old and you are unsure which country it now belongs to, send us a photograph and we will tell you where it has to go.
DOCUMENTS WE TRANSLATE MOST OFTEN
- Civil status: birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates, single status letters, name change records
- Education: diplomas, attestats, transcripts, course descriptions, recognition (denklik) files
- Official: passports, internal identity documents, driving licences, police certificates, residence and work permit files
- Legal: powers of attorney, court judgments, divorce and custody decisions, inheritance and title deed papers
- Commercial: company registrations, charters, contracts, tenders, invoices, customs and transport documents
- Medical: reports and test results for treatment in Turkish hospitals
Property purchases and marriages require you to attend the land registry or marriage office in person; we send a consecutive interpreter with you. For conferences and trade fairs we provide simultaneous teams.
Other languages are listed on our translation languages page.
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