Sworn Translation in Kars

A trading gateway that faces north-east

To understand what drives the demand for translation in Kars, it is enough to look at which way the province faces. Its economic and cultural ties are built less towards the large industrial centres to the south-west than towards the neighbouring countries to the north-east. Because the rail and road corridors run through here, companies in the province do business directly with their counterparts in the Caucasus. To that add the export arm of livestock and dairy production, and the cultural tourism that draws foreign visitors. The upshot is that files from Kars generally fall under three headings: the paperwork of a commercial relationship with a company in the country opposite, the technical annexes of food exports, and the correspondence of tourism businesses. Each of the three calls for a different language and a different form of approval.

The kinds of document that come from Kars

On the commercial side we see incorporation and registry documents, signature circulars, distributorship and supply contracts, and transport and dispatch papers. On the food side it is not the product so much as the papers travelling with it that matter: analysis reports, health certificates, production permits, geographical indication registration certificates and label texts. Tourism businesses send accommodation contracts, tour programmes and promotional texts. On the personal side, civil registry records, marriage certificates, diplomas and visa files make up a steady flow, and a good part of them is prepared for procedures being carried out in the neighbouring countries.

Document	For which relationship
Company registry document and signature circular	A representative office or partnership in a neighbouring country
Supply and distributorship contract	A regular shipping relationship
Analysis and health certificate	Dairy and food exports
Geographical indication registration certificate	Promoting and protecting the product abroad
Civil registry and marriage documents	Cross-border family matters

Russian, Azerbaijani and Georgian: three separate counterparts

For generations Russian served the region as the language of commercial and administrative correspondence; many companies across the Caucasus still conduct their internal correspondence and their contracts in it, so the Russian version of a commercial file leaving Kars is very often the version actually used. Azerbaijani is the language of the direct trading relationship with the neighbouring country to the east, and the official authorities and company paperwork there are drawn up in it. Georgian is needed in the transport and trade business conducted with the neighbour to the north, and in notarial and land registry matters on the other side. The three are not interchangeable; whichever country the document is to be submitted in, that country’s language is the one asked for. You can compare the forms of approval each country requires on the countries page.

The points we take particular care over when working in these three languages:

• The spelling of personal and company names in the different alphabets is fixed by a single decision and does not change anywhere in the file.
• Names of official bodies are given in their local equivalent, with the original name kept in brackets where needed.
• Product descriptions are kept consistent with the wording on the customs declaration.
• Date and currency formats follow the official written conventions of the destination country.

Working remotely, and the winter

Winter in Kars is hard and long, and for a good part of the year setting out on the road to carry a document is an unpredictable undertaking. Scanning the document and uploading it instead is both quicker and safer: the original stays with you, and the file is never at risk of going astray. Once it is uploaded the price and the delivery date appear at once, the sworn signature and, where required, notarisation are completed at our office in Ankara Kızılay, the electronically signed copy reaches your inbox the same day, and the wet-signed original is couriered to your address. We have no branch in Kars and we do not imply that we have one; the service model here rests from beginning to end on remote intake and delivery by courier.

How to begin

Upload a legible image of your document to the quote form and let the page count, the language pair and the delivery date appear straight away. If you work regularly with the same recipient, we keep the renderings of terms and job titles settled in your earlier files and use the same ones on the jobs that follow. Per-page rates do not vary from province to province, and they are listed by language pair on the pricing page. Sending several documents in one go both speeds the process up and lets us check that the names and dates agree across them.

The information here summarises the process; the notarisation and apostille steps are completed in Ankara. It is worth checking the current conditions against the official source.