On July 4, 2012 the diploma awarding ceremony took place at the St Petersburg School of Conference Interpreting and Translation, Herzen University. The ceremony was attended by the University leaders, including Rector Valery Solomin, University President Gennady Bordovsky and Vice Rector Sergey Goncharov. Among honorary guests were high-ranked officials and international dignitaries: the representatives of the city government (Chief Federal Inspector in St Petersburg Viktor Minenko, Chair of the Committee for External Affairs Alexander Prokhorenko, Acting Chair of the Committee for Science and Higher Education Irina Ganus), the representatives of linguistic services of the MFA of Russia, the European Commission and the UN (Director General of Directorate General of SCIC Marco Benedetti, Director General of the Directorate General of the DGT Jean-Pier Verleysen, Director of the Department of Linguistic Support of the Russian MFA Teimuraz Ramishvili, Head of the Russian Interpretation Section in the UN Headquarters in New York Nikolay Alankin, Deputy Director of the UN Information center in Moscow Yury Shishaev). The ceremony was attended by the media, families and friends of the graduates.

Soon after the ceremony the graduates set off to their internship programs in the linguistic services in the UN Headquarters in New-York and the UN Office in Geneva. One graduate has received an appointment at the Linguistic Support Department of the MFA of Russia.

1. ИТАР-ТАСС http://www.itartass.spb.ru/news/3913/

2. Regnum http://www.newspb.ru/allnews/1548202/

3. Балтинфо http://www.baltinfo.ru/2012/07/03/4-iyulya-sreda–ANONSY-288763

4. Север Информ http://www.severinform.ru/?page=newsfull&date=04-07-2012&newsid=164841

5. Один день Питера http://www.piterday.ru/newstxt/1318252426.html

6. Персональный сайт А.П. Чужакина http://apchuzhakin.narod.ru/index.html7