Bohdan Zograf and so-called “Belorussian” translations

By Andrej Shadura

I'd like to bring some attention to activity of a person mostly known as Bohdan Zograf. If you Google that name, you'll find that he seems to be a person who knows Belarusian language very well, and is interested in translating as many texts as he can into Belarusian for no money. Unfortunately, he isn't. Trust me, I'm really a native speaker, I was born in Minsk, Belarus, and have lived there for 25 years of my life (at least this person: (1, 2) may prove I really am the person I'm telling you I am, if you're interested). Said that, I think I really have a right to say: those translations are fake. These texts are just machine-translated versions of the original articles or web pages, published in some strange weblog at some strange web site without being structured or systematised. This already has been pointed out by Jonathan Wakely, but, well, some people may not believe him as he doesn't seem to know Belarusian.

Anyway, one more interesting detail: why would a person with a non-Belarusian name and a Hungarian telephone number who can't really properly spell the name of the country (Belarus, not Belorussia) and the language (Belarusian, not Belorussian — well, lots of people do that mistake, I must admit), say that Belarusian is his mother tongue do a translation asking to link him back for that? Doesn't that seem strange a bit? It does for me.

I don't really understand the reasons behind that, and I can't really see what is he going to achieve by doing this, but, as Jonathan said, I believe that all spammers must die. Well, not necessarily literally, but at least they must stop spamming, shouldn't they?

Bohdan Zograf is a spammer. Don't do what he asks you to do, as doing so you help spammers.

P.S. Spread the word.