How an English translator became a popular blogger in Russia
When English schoolboy Will decided to learn Russian in Russia, his family didn't understand: “And what will you do with this language afterwards?”
But, years passed and he found what to do: His company, ‘Eclectic Translations’, has worked on the English-language documents for the St. Petersburg Economic Forum and Russian new-release movies. And now, William Hackett-Jones has become a well-known blogger and is writing a novel about a Russian village.
Why Russian?
Will grew up in the English county of Suffolk, in a 500-year-old farmhouse. His mother opened a small guesthouse there and they always had many unusual guests staying with them.
Will was already learning three foreign languages at the time and he started Russian at 14 years of age, as the language was being taught at the new school he was attending. It wasn't easy, but he didn't give up and now speaks it fluently. “However, I still have an accent. And I often make grammatical mistakes,” he laments.
Will ended up in Russia almost by accident. At a market in Cambridge, his mother met a Russian physicist named Andrei Gagarin. She mentioned that her son had started learning Russian and the scientist immediately invited him to visit St. Petersburg.
“When I arrived, Gagarin was out of town, so I stayed with his friends in a residential district. That trip in 1994 was interesting, but, at times, dangerous: a drunk man once attacked me. The police came and gave him a beating right on the spot. Yes, it was a sad experience, but I came back again.”
Will started to travel to Russia regularly, eventually settling down to live in St. Petersburg.
Russian wife & daughter
Friends introduced him to his future wife. Alexandra teaches English language and literature at a university. Today, they are raising their daughter, Katya.
"At home, we try to speak English, because Katya's Russian is unquestionably good. She watches cartoons in both languages."
The family celebrates both Catholic Christmas and Russian New Year. And Will does try to introduce his daughter to English cuisine.
“Otherwise, England and Russia have a lot in common: we want our child to do sports, learn music and spend summers in the countryside surrounded by nature.”
Business in Russia
“I was often invited to do voice-overs for trailers and animated films and, almost every time, the text was poorly translated. That's how I realized that, in Russia, there was an open niche for high-quality translation into English. That's how my translation company, ‘Eclectic Translations’, came to be.”
Will and his colleagues created English subtitles for movies like Fyodor Bondarchuk's ‘Stalingrad’ (2013), Andrei Zvyagintsev's ‘Leviathan’ (2014) and ‘Loveless’ (2017), as well as for restored Soviet classics, from the Oscar-winning ‘War and Peace’ (1965) to ‘Come and See’ (1986).
William also has his own YouTube channel, ‘Shakespeare is crying.’
“One member of my team came up with this idea. Our first videos were about bad movie translations into Russian. And there are a lot of them. For example, ‘The Hangover’ (2009), ‘No Time to Die’ (2021), ‘Joker’ (2019), ‘Tenet’ (2020), it was both terrible and funny. That's why ‘Shakespeare is crying’ over what they've done to his language!”
Over time, Will started a series of interviews with foreigners who live in Russia and speak Russian.
“I've been asked countless times: why do you live in Russia? I didn't have a concrete answer, so I decided to find it in conversations with other people.”
A novel about a Russian village
In the summer, William and his family live in a village near St. Petersburg. The things he saw there inspired him to write a whole novel about how a Russian village was revived thanks to a yacht club.
“The novel I'm writing now came to my mind in Russian. It's about modern Russia and for Russians. I hadn't planned to translate this book. But, my American friends said they were also very interested in reading it. I told them: ‘No, it's about Russians, you probably won't understand it.’ But they want to…”
How 20 years in Russia changed the Englishman
“I think I've become more spontaneous. In England, everyone plans six months in advance. Here, life isn't very predictable and it's not worth making plans more than a week ahead.”
Furthermore, Will learned mutual aid from Russians, becoming kinder and more responsive. Thirteen years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer. And his Russian friends immediately started offering concrete help: raising money, searching for doctors and so on. Fortunately, it all ended well.
“And another thing: I used to be an active atheist, but now, I understand there is something in the world that we can't explain. And that we can't influence, hence the Russian understanding of fate. I've learned to trust it.”
The full version of the interview is available (in Russian) on the ‘Nation’ magazine’s website.