Pavel Palazhchenko

Personal

Palazhchenko was born on 17 March 1949 in Monino, Moscow Oblast, Russia. He graduated from the Maurice Thorez Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages (Moscow State Linguistic University) in 1972.

Interpreter

As one of the leading interpreters of his time, Palazhchenko participated in all US-Soviet summit talks leading to the end of the Cold War. He is the author of a personal and political memoir, My Years with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze: The Memoir of a Soviet Interpreter.

Writer

Palazhchenko also wrote the Moi Nesistematichesky Slovar or My Unsystematic Dictionary which was published in Russia by R. Valent publications in May 2002. The 300-page Russian-English dictionary provides information, insight and cultural observation on the linguistic twists and turns that lie between the English and Russian languages; and was a sequel to Palazhchenko’s other work: the English-Russian dictionary published in 1999. The 1999 English-Russian dictionary dealt with trends in the political, diplomatic and journalistic usage in the English language.

Palazhchenko loves his trade. In his book, My Unsystematic Dictionary, Palazhchenko writes: This very occupation, to imbibe the air of a foreign (and your own) language, to rake through the throng of words and, having found the right one, feel its texture, its size and then grope for the threads connecting the two languages, has always been my favorite thing to do… – from “Book Tackles Those Hard Words”, The Moscow Times, June 3, 2002.

In 2005, the third book of this series, Unsystematic Dictionary-2005 was published.

Associate

After becoming a long-time associate and aide to Mikhail Gorbachev for several years, Palazhchenko eventually became the head of the International Department of the International Non-governmental Foundation for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (or The Gorbachev Foundation), where he also functioned as an analyst, spokesperson, interpreter and translator.