A translation bureau for Lentekhi - TARGMANEBI's service for a municipality whose main export is culture. The song, dance and towers of Kvemo Svaneti attract international interest, and that interest comes with its own chain of documents: a festival invitation and contract, a group visa package for twenty-five singers, a grant application for restoring a tower, an expedition agreement with a university, the right to publish archival recordings. Most of these documents start in English and have to end up in Georgian in Lentekhi - or the other way round.
Alongside culture, Lentekhi has the ordinary concerns of the mountains: eco-migrants' property in the valley that has to be formalised from the lowlands or from abroad; families whose children are in Europe; young people heading to universities in Kutaisi and Tbilisi; the first guesthouses and guides. Tbilisi is five hours from Lentekhi and Kutaisi three, longer in winter. So ordering by phone is the only realistic way here, and the courier comes to Lentekhi via Tsageri on an agreed day.
An ensemble abroad - the tour document package
A folk ensemble's tour to a European festival means twenty or thirty people leaving at the same time, and the documents for it fall into three groups:
For the festival
- Invitation letter and festival terms in Georgian for the ensemble
- Contract with the festival - fee, travel, accommodation, recording rights
- Technical rider and stage requirements in English
- Ensemble presentation, history and repertoire description
- Programme notes and short translations of the songs for the catalogue
For the embassy
- Cover letter from the organisation for the group visa application
- Ensemble registration documents and the director's authority
- List of participants as per their passports, in one transliteration
- Notarized parental consents for underage participants
- Certificates from workplaces or schools as a guarantee of return
On the road and back
- List of instruments and costumes for temporary export through customs
- Travel insurance terms in Georgian
- Festival certificates and diplomas in Georgian for the report
- Fee documents for the accounts department and the tax office
- Press coverage in Georgian for the archive
The most important item in a group visa package is the list of participants: twenty-five Svan surnames have to be transliterated by one and the same rule, matching the passports, and a one-letter difference stops the visa application. Svan surnames - Chkhetiani, Gasviani, Lipartseliani, Oniani - are often written differently in Latin letters in different passports; we always prepare the list from photos of the passports, and a table drawn up once for an ensemble works for every tour after that. In the festival contract, the clauses on recording, broadcasting and publication rights need separate legal attention - Svan songs often turn up in foreign recordings without the ensemble's permission.
Towers - restoration, grants, heritage status
The towers of Kvemo Svaneti are less well known than those of Zemo Svaneti and so need more protection - and in recent years grants from foreign foundations, embassy cultural programmes and international organisations have been coming precisely for them. For the family that owns a tower, a community organisation or the municipality, we translate the restoration grant application with its budget and photo documentation, the architect's and restorer's reports in both directions, the foundation's contract and reporting rules into Georgian, interim and final reports, and correspondence with the cultural heritage agency for the foreign partner. The technical text on restoration is translated by a translator specialising in construction, and the historical and cultural part by an academic translator; the names of towers, villages and families are written in one transliteration throughout the project.
Ethnographers, linguists, archival recordings
The Svan language and the ethnography of Kvemo Svaneti have attracted foreign researchers for decades, and every expedition starts with documents: an agreement between the university and a local partner, the researcher's visa and residence papers in Georgian, informed consent forms for villagers in Georgian and Svan, agreements on publishing recordings and keeping them in archives, and finally the publications, which have to come back to the village in Georgian. The informed consent form here is a legal document: a villager must know exactly where and how their voice and image will be used - so it is translated by a legal translator, in simple but precise language.
Eco-migrants' property and Kvemo Svaneti families
Many families of Lentekhi municipality are in the lowlands - in Kakheti, Kvemo Kartli, Imereti - while the house and land stayed in the valley, often with Soviet-era papers. When a house in the valley is sold or passed to a son or daughter in Europe, the Soviet papers are sent from the lowlands and the child's power of attorney with an apostille from abroad - and both are translated into Georgian. Added to that is what every family needs: an embassy, a university, a consent for a child to travel, a grandmother's pension. One family's documents are handled as one package, with one transliteration of the Svan surname - just like the ensemble's list.
Languages in orders from Lentekhi
Because of festivals and foundations, English is the undisputed leader in Lentekhi; European folk festivals send contracts in French, German, Italian, Polish and Czech, and ethnographic schools in German and Dutch. In family documents Greek, Italian and Spanish appear, Russian for old papers; Ukrainian, Turkish, Arabic and Chinese are rare from Lentekhi. For translation of a text in Svan - consent forms, song lyrics - please call us in advance.
The process from the end of the road
A file, wherever there is signal
A festival letter, a grant form or an expedition agreement - as a file, by email to info@targmanebi.ge; passports and certificates - as photos, by WhatsApp, from Lentekhi, Tsageri or Kutaisi, wherever you have signal.
Festival, embassy, foundation or authority
Who the document is for and when the deadline is - the date of the tour, the competition or the expedition. For a group package, send us photos of every participant's passport all at once.
One transliteration, the right specialist
Contracts are translated by a legal translator, grants and reports by a project translator, a tower report by a technical one, presentations and programme notes by a culture specialist; the table of Svan surnames runs through every document.
The file to the ensemble, the paper to Lentekhi
You get the file straight away; the courier brings the certified package to Lentekhi via Tsageri on an agreed day, or you collect it in Kutaisi or at the Tbilisi office. In winter, the weather decides the courier's day.
Price and deadlines
An order from Lentekhi is priced as in Tbilisi - by agreement, once we have seen the documents; the courier to Kvemo Svaneti is a separate item known in advance and is paid once for a group package. A tour package - contract, visa letters, list, consents - is ready in a week if you send the passports all at once; a grant application by the competition date, a tower restoration report in as many days as it has pages, a certificate for a valley family with notarization on the third day, and an apostille takes as long as the issuing authority requires. An ensemble has a table of surnames and one invoice at the end of the month, and the second tour comes out noticeably cheaper than the first. A list of thirty Svan surnames is checked and signed by the head of the bureau - the sole trader Mariam Zumadze, ID 30601010853 - who corrects even a one-letter inaccuracy free of charge.
Has a festival sent an invitation to a Lentekhi ensemble? Applying for a grant to restore a tower? An ethnographic expedition on its way? Or do you have papers for a house left in the valley to translate? Send us a file or a photo whenever you have signal - we send the courier all the way to the end of the road.
Call: 501 113 200Frequently asked questions - translation in Lentekhi
Our ensemble of 28 is going to a festival in France. Which documents are translated for the visa?
The organisation's cover letter, the festival invitation in Georgian for you and in French or English for the embassy, the list of participants as per their passports, the director's authority, notarized parental consents for minors and certificates guaranteeing return. Send us photos of all the passports at once - the list is prepared in one transliteration.
The festival contract has a clause on recording and publishing the concert. What does that mean for us?
Often that the festival uses the recording indefinitely and without payment - in broadcasts, in its archive, in advertising. The contract is translated by a legal translator who flags this clause for you separately, so you can ask for a restriction or payment before signing. For Svan songs this is especially important.
We are applying to a foreign foundation for a grant to restore a tower, and the architect's report is in Georgian. How long does it take in English?
A ten-page report with photos and diagram captions usually takes three to five days, with construction and restoration terminology; the grant application with its budget goes in the same package, before the competition date. The names of the tower, the village and the owning family are fixed once and run through the whole project.
A German linguist is making recordings in the village and asks for a consent form. Who prepares it and how?
The form is translated into Georgian by a legal translator in simple but precise language - where, how and for how long the voice and image will be used, and how consent can be withdrawn. If a version in Svan is needed, call us in advance. The expedition agreement with the university is prepared in two languages.
Our Svan surname is written one way in the passport, another in old papers and a third way in our child's European document. How do we bring them together?
We record all three spellings in one table - the Latin form in the current passport is the main one, and the others are written in notes in their original form - and every later family document, including the ensemble list, follows that table. Where there has been an official change in how the surname is written, we attach the document that confirms it.
Will the courier come to Lentekhi? In winter too?
The courier comes to Lentekhi via Tsageri on an agreed day; in winter the weather decides the day and, if necessary, we keep the original in Tsageri or Kutaisi until you can come down. By then you already have the file - and that is often enough for the festival and the foundation.
Translation bureau in the other cities of Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti
Lentekhi is Kvemo Svaneti, Tsageri and Kharistvala are Lechkhumi, and Ambrolauri and Oni are Racha. Each city has its own page with its local focus.