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TRIS · Brand archive

The TRIS story has continued for more than 30 years

The TRIS digital archive offers a glimpse into the past and shows how we changed, how we advertised ourselves and how we saw ourselves at different times.

Timeline

How the TRIS reputation took shape

TRIS has been working since 1993, and in that time the bureau has been where translation decided intergovernmental talks, multi-year contracts and whether a document would be recognised abroad. Below is a chronology of that work, and alongside each era a few things worth keeping: letters on headed paper, captures of successive websites, advertising layouts, press mentions. They do not exhaust what was done, nor are they meant to. Think of them as frames from the album of a company that is still at work.

1993–1999

The first serious projects

The name of the bureau took shape in the previous millennium, and it was shaped by the work rather than by advertising: conferences with a foreign head of state in the hall, UN missions where simultaneous and consecutive interpreting ran at the same time, pharmaceutical companies for whom the precision of a term decided whether a medicine was approved.

Stages

  1. 1993

    TRIS starts as a separate project of the founders of Silver Polygraph. The first full-service translation bureau in Kyiv.

  2. 1996

    Work begins with SONY Overseas and the Ukrainian Union of Nazi Victims. Both would later count these years in their own letters.

  3. 1997

    Simultaneous interpreting at Ukrgazprom industry conferences, including one marking thirty years of gas supply to Czechoslovakia.

  4. 1998

    The conference “Atatürk and Modern Turkey”, attended by Süleyman Demirel, President of Turkey. The technical mission of the Gas Centre of the UN Economic Commission for Europe.

  5. 1999

    The Swedish-Ukrainian education seminar. Regular medical translation for Bristol-Myers Squibb and SmithKline Beecham.

  6. September 1999

    The first TRIS website is recorded in the internet archives.

Details of the era

  • Three offices in Kyiv: on Horodetskoho, on Raskovoi and on Peremohy Avenue.
  • 44 languages and our own interpreting equipment for 100, 200 and 300 receivers.
  • An online price estimate covering 28 languages and a 5% discount for registration. In 1998.
  • Finished translations were delivered on paper, on a diskette, by fax and by email.

Moments worth keeping

26 May 1998Embassy of Turkey

For simultaneous interpreting at the conference “Atatürk and Modern Turkey” on 22 May 1998.

17 June 1998Ukrgazprom

For interpreting at the technical mission of the UN ECE Gas Centre on 9–11 June. The letter also names 1997 conferences.

2 October 1998Kyiv Regional Education Authority

For a creative approach, craftsmanship and promptness. Issued with the regional education trade union council.

28 January 1999Bristol-Myers Squibb

For translating medical literature: “Having worked with the TRIS Translation Centre for a long time…”

1 February 1999SONY Overseas SA

“Thank you for your great support during three years”: by early 1999 the cooperation was three years old.

2 March 1999SmithKline Beecham

For excellent quality in medical translation.

3 June 1999Embassy of Sweden

For organising and interpreting the Swedish-Ukrainian education seminar on 26–27 April.

design of 1998The first website

It already listed 44 languages, simultaneous and consecutive interpreting, equipment hire, guide-interpreters, notarial certification and legalisation.

1990sThe historical logo

The translation centre mark of those years.

2000–2007

The state, banks, international missions

The bureau becomes a separate legal entity and settles in where the cost of an error is highest: the OSCE, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the National Bank, the Ministry of Transport, the Red Cross. At the same time TRIS takes on something nobody had done before it: bringing conference interpreters around one table and starting to put order into an industry that had neither rules, nor rates, nor professional standing.

Stages

  1. 2000

    The TRIS Translation Centre becomes a separate legal entity with branches in Kharkiv and Odesa.

  2. 2001

    The OSCE seminar on the organisation’s preventive functions, held with the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The international Red Cross Society conference.

  3. 2002

    The National Bank issues a reference for IFES in Washington. The international transport conference on corridor MTC No. 5, with European transport ministers.

  4. 24 March 2006

    Another contract signed with the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine.

  5. 26 July 2006

    TRIS wins an OSCE tender.

  6. 27 March 2007

    TRIS convenes the first round table of Ukrainian conference interpreters: English, Spanish, Italian, German, Polish, French and Czech.

  7. 24 April 2007

    The first regional office opens in Odesa.

  8. 24 May 2007

    The second Forum of Interpreters at the Ukrainian Hour press centre: some thirty freelance interpreters, thirteen languages, a debate on the status of the profession and common rules for the market.

  9. 17 August 2007

    TRIS is accredited by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.

  10. 2007

    A tender won and a contract signed with the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to serve visits by foreign delegations.

Details of the era

  • The website gains its own articles about the profession and a discussion forum.
  • The head office moves to Horodetskoho 11-a; an office opens on Tryokhsviatytelska.
  • Staff are trained separately: a masterclass on client service, a workshop on information technology for translators.

Moments worth keeping

2 April 2001Ukrainian Red Cross Society

For interpreting at the international conference on the integration and development of national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies.

9 August 2001Ukrainian Union of Nazi Victims

“Your company has been providing us with services for more than five years”, counting from 1996. TRIS helped prepare memoir material for publications and books.

1 November 2001OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine

For the seminar on the preventive functions of the OSCE, 8–9 October 2001. Signed by Ambassador Peter Burkhard.

15 February 2002National Bank of Ukraine

A reference for IFES: “For four years, we have been working together with the TRIS Translation Center”, that is, since 1998.

31 October 2002Ukrinteravtoservice, Ministry of Transport

For the international transport conference on corridor MTC No. 5: European transport ministers and the diplomatic corps.

2007Press about us

The page where the bureau collected what was published about it: “The untranslatable why-asker” and “A tongue will take you to Kyiv”. The texts themselves are no longer online; the page that listed them survives.

2006–2007The next generation of the site

The line We speak your language, news of the OSCE tender and the Prosecutor General contract, a three-language switcher.

2008–2018

Tenders, a school, a network

The years when the bureau works at the level of the country’s highest offices and trains its own successors at the same time. Multi-year tenders for the National Bank and Ukrainian Railways, interpreting for visiting foreign delegations, Ukraine’s first School of Simultaneous Interpreting and a branch network from Odesa to Kharkiv.

Stages

  1. 1 April 2008

    Simultaneous interpreting at a top-level meeting during the visit of the President of the United States to Kyiv.

  2. summer 2008

    Ukraine’s first School of Simultaneous Interpreting opens: a course for graduates of language and translation programmes.

  3. July 2008

    The school’s first interpreting seminar. Participants from Kyiv, Lviv, Donetsk, Kryvyi Rih and Odesa.

  4. December 2008

    The seminar “EU standards and interpreting”. Chernihiv, Khmelnytskyi and Kherson join in.

  5. September–November 2008

    More than thirty documents for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the continental shelf case against Romania, heard by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

  6. 21 December 2010

    A three-year tender won for serving the National Bank of Ukraine, translation in 44 languages.

  7. December 2010

    A tender won for serving Ukrainian Railways for 2011.

  8. 2012

    Offices in Kyiv, Odesa and Kharkiv. A blog and a resource for translators appear.

  9. 2014

    A network with the head office in Kyiv and around fifteen branches across Ukraine.

  10. 2018

    The mark “25 years of success and trust”.

Details of the era

  • The lanyard badge from the 2012 design stayed on the site until 2026 and now serves as its icon: it is what you see on the browser tab.
  • A charity programme runs alongside: a boarding school, a nursery and medicines for cancer centres.
  • In 2016 the website counted seventeen offices: nine in Kyiv, four in Odesa and four in Kharkiv.

Addresses of those years

None of these addresses is open any more. Today the bureau receives clients at a single office, 40/2 Volodymyrska St, office 5 in Kyiv, and works remotely with any country.

Kyiv
  • 11-a Horodetskoho St, office 27 (Khreshchatyk metro)
  • 30 Velyka Zhytomyrska St (Zoloti Vorota)
  • 33/1 Peremohy Ave (Politekhnichnyi Instytut)
  • 19 Maryny Raskovoi St, office 803 (Livoberezhna)
  • 45 Vorovskoho St (Vokzalna)
  • 16 Moskovskyi Ave, office 514 (Petrivka)
  • 2 Mechnykova St, Parus business centre, 19th floor (Klovska)
Odesa
  • 43 Hretska St
  • 10/9 Shevchenka Ave
  • 21 Akademika Korolova St
Kharkiv
  • 4 Sumska St, office 222
  • 51 Sumska St
  • 4 Serpova St, office 211
  • 9/11 Malomiasnytska St
Earlier in Kyiv
  • 22 Peremohy Ave
  • 15 Maryny Raskovoi St
  • 11 Tryokhsviatytelska St
  • 33 Vorovskoho St
  • Vasylkivska St

Moments worth keeping

5 December 2008Ministry of Foreign Affairs

For translating the case file on the delimitation of the continental shelf between Ukraine and Romania in the Black Sea, heard by the International Court of Justice. More than thirty documents in three autumn months.

1998–2015A wall of letters

Ninety-two letters from the first two decades of work, including those shown separately above: Ernst & Young, HP, Energoatom, Imperial Tobacco, De Agostini, Epicentr, the Illich Steel Works, Ukreximtrans, Prominvestbank, the Institute of Metrology, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and dozens more.

2012A redesign that outlived a decade

Three offices, news of the National Bank and railway tenders, the School of Simultaneous Interpreting.

2010sAn advertising layout with Poligraphych

The character created in the late twentieth century at work in the bureau’s advertising.

2012The lanyard badge

The mark from the 2012 redesign. It stood on the site for fourteen years and is now the TRIS icon on the browser tab.

2018The 25 years mark

The anniversary sign marking a quarter of a century of work.

2021–2026

One office, the whole world

The era of the office network came to an end. The bureau became smaller and more mobile, and for the client that turned out for the better: an order no longer needs a trip across the city, the document is sent from a phone, the quote arrives within minutes, and the result is collected at the Kyiv office, posted to Warsaw or emailed as a file. The geography only widened. Since 2022 TRIS has worked equally for Ukrainians in Poland, Germany, Czechia, Spain or Canada, for foreigners who came here to live and work, and for international organisations and companies dealing with Ukraine for the first time.

Stages

  1. 2021

    The work moves to a remote format. The office at 40/2 Volodymyrska St remains the place to bring originals and collect finished documents.

  2. 2022

    After 24 February demand changes in both directions. Ukrainians abroad need documents for temporary protection, recognition of diplomas and family reunification. Coming the other way are foreign specialists and contractors working in Ukraine, international missions and donor programmes, and companies entering the country for the first time.

  3. 2023–2025

    The corporate side rests on those who come back year after year: public institutions, international organisations, banks, pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies. Interpreting and conference equipment hire grow as a separate line.

  4. 2026

    A new website: three languages, more than two hundred and fifty pages on specific services, languages and countries, an online price estimate and contact through whichever channel suits the client.

Details of the era

  • Thirty-three years of work is not just a date on the letterhead: it is preserved spellings of names, terminology by field, and the memory of how a particular authority accepts documents.
  • Documents are increasingly submitted electronically, so the form of certification and the delivery route are planned before the work starts.
  • A set of documents is rarely in one language: the same certificate goes out in two or three at once.
  • Simultaneous interpreting has returned in hybrid form: part of the audience in the hall, part online, with the equipment and technician provided by the bureau.
  • Regular clients work on a corporate footing: a dedicated team, one glossary, deferred payment and a single invoice per period.

Moments worth keeping

2026The new TRIS website

A price estimate straight from the front page, messengers next to the phone number, Ukrainian, English and Esperanto in one switcher.

2026The services page

Translation, apostille and legalisation, interpreting, localisation and corporate programmes, each with pages of its own.

2026The mobile view

Most enquiries arrive from a phone, so the site was designed for the small screen first.

until 2026The previous site, last of its line

The 2012 design lasted fourteen years and served its time: no online price estimate, no mobile version and no separate pages for services that kept multiplying.

Original character

Two images from one story

Poligraphych is a character whose image was created in the late twentieth century by the brilliant photographer, artist, art director and friend of TRIS, Dmytro Sakharov. Here we show the original archive image and its contemporary interpretation for the new website.

Original image
Archive Poligraphych, late twentieth century
Archive Poligraphych, late twentieth century
Poligraphych in 2026A contemporary Poligraphych image for digital media
A contemporary Poligraphych image for digital media

Project culture

How TRIS works

Four common scenarios show the working logic behind documents, corporate content, events and specialist material.

01

TRIS · Project

Corporate localisation

Task
Regular updates in several languages
Organisation
A dedicated team, glossary and version control
Outcome
Consistent content ready for publication
02

TRIS · Project

Legal documents

Task
A connected set of materials
Organisation
Subject translation and definition checks
Outcome
A structured final document set
03

TRIS · Project

International conference

Task
Several languages, speakers and a technical schedule
Organisation
Interpreter preparation and event coordination
Outcome
Language support from rehearsal to completion
04

TRIS · Project

Medical translation

Task
Subject terminology, figures and sensitive data
Organisation
Specialist matching and editorial control
Outcome
A consistent set in the agreed format

Experience

Sectors that trust our work

TRIS handles projects for public institutions, international organisations, embassies, banks, companies and civil society.

01Public institutionsTRIS · 1993–2026
02International organisationsTRIS · 1993–2026
03EmbassiesTRIS · 1993–2026
04BanksTRIS · 1993–2026
05Ukrainian businessesTRIS · 1993–2026
06Civil societyTRIS · 1993–2026

Client service

With you at every stage

Whether you work with us at the office or remotely, you always know who is responsible for your order and what is happening with your materials. A manager coordinates the specialists, answers your questions and keeps you informed.

Our office in central KyivIllustration
Our office in central Kyiv

Bring your documents in person, receive a consultation and collect the completed order at a convenient time.

A team for your projectIllustration
A team for your project

Translators, editors and a manager work together to maintain accuracy, terminology and agreed timelines.

Personal consultationIllustration
Personal consultation

Your manager will explain the requirements, help you choose the right service and agree a secure way to transfer materials.

TRIS archive

Do you have archive material or a TRIS story?

Send scans, photographs and short descriptions so that every item retains its date, context and authorship.

Contact TRIS →