Russian Interpreters in Guangzhou for the Canton Fair: The Fair Sells It at CNY 1,000 a Day, We Have 56 — and What Their Profiles Show

Checked on 23 September 2026. We are Guangzhou Guanri Translation Service Co., Ltd. (广州市贯日翻译服务有限公司), an interpreting company based in Guangzhou. We are not a factory-audit firm, not a law firm, and not the Canton Fair organiser. The escort interpreting this article recommends is the service we sell, so read it the way you would read anything written by a seller. Nothing below is legal advice or compliance advice. Every figure is labelled with its source; where a number comes from our own data rather than from an official document, the sentence says so.

Two counts matter. The Canton Fair sells Russian interpreting itself: its interpreting page publishes CNY 1,000 a day for an escort interpreter — only inside the exhibition complex, only on fair days, and on a page that carries no date. And our own Guangzhou directory holds 56 profiles that list Russian, fifth of fourteen foreign languages. That is a real bench, not one person.

1. Which line is yours

Read the row that matches you. Every row ends in something you can do, and carries the number you would need to do it. The badge rules quoted here come from the 140th session's accompanying-personnel notice, published on 28 September 2026, the day applications opened (see §6). The Fair's rates and booking dates below come from its interpreting page, which carries no publication date (§2). Where a row says to message us, our contact page also lists an email address; if you can write only in Russian, say so in the first line and we will tell you whether a Russian speaker can take the thread. The Fair does not say which languages its hotline answers in; its email addresses give you a written channel.

If this is you	What applies	Then do this	Who decides
You have never attended the Canton Fair, or do not yet hold a buyer badge	This matters for interpreting only if you want an interpreter badged into the halls. The 140th session's accompanying-personnel notice says regular buyers can apply directly, while new buyers must first complete their own pre-registration and submit the application for the Overseas Buyer Badge before they can apply for accompanying personnel	If you want a Chinese interpreter badged into the halls, pre-register on cantonfair.org.cn first. Interpreting outside the halls, and the Fair's own in-hall service, do not wait on this. Questions: 4000-888-999 in China, (0086) 20-28888999 from abroad, info@cantonfair.org.cn. Where and when to collect a buyer badge: Canton Fair 140th buyer badge collection desks and dates	The Canton Fair
You are coming for Phase 1 (15–19 October)	Household appliances, consumer electronics, machinery, vehicles and parts, lighting, hardware, tools, new materials and chemical products — all 19 sections in §4. On our own lead time (§8), book one to two weeks ahead if Russian is read as a common pair, four to eight weeks if it is read as a rare one	Message us on WhatsApp +86 139 2416 6640 with your dates and product, and say in the first line that it is Phase 1; if you are inside that lead time, ask directly whether anyone is free and what it costs. The Fair's own interpreting desk takes bookings during the Fair, 15 October – 4 November, at the counters in each area: A 86-20-89130395 · B 86-20-89061946 · C 86-20-89074104 · D 86-20-89139941 (all seven counters in §2); according to its undated page, bookings outside the Fair run 30 September – 14 October: email ISC@cantonfair.org.cn as well as calling (020)8913-8055	You, once we and the Fair have both answered
You are coming for Phase 2 (23–27 October)	Ceramics, kitchenware, home goods, gifts, furniture, building and decorative materials — all 14 sections in §4	Message us on +86 139 2416 6640 with dates and product. Check your phase against our own lead time (§8); if you are inside it, say so in the first line and ask directly whether anyone is free and what it costs	Us, on the named interpreter's calendar — and if the answer is no, we say so
You are coming for Phase 3 (31 October – 4 November)	Toys, garments, textiles, shoes, bags, food, medical products, personal care — all 21 sections in §4	Message us on +86 139 2416 6640. Check your phase against the same lead time (§8); if you are inside it, say so in the first line and ask directly whether anyone is free and what it costs. Garments and textiles is the specific product group our Russian profiles declare most — 17 of 56, self-declared (§7)	Us, on the named interpreter's calendar
You need Russian inside the halls, on fair days	The Fair sells this itself: CNY 800/day booth interpreter, CNY 1,000/day escort interpreter for languages other than English — on an undated page (§2)	Book it with the Fair, not with us. During the Fair, 15 October – 4 November, use your area's counter: A 86-20-89130395 · B 86-20-89061946 · C 86-20-89074104 · D 86-20-89139941. Before the Fair: 30 September – 14 October, (020)8913-8055, ISC@cantonfair.org.cn; during the Fair that line is out of window. Pay in CNY at the Buyer Service Centre	The Canton Fair. Their page says interpreter numbers are limited and it is first come, first served
You need Russian outside the halls — factory visits, hotels, dinners, another province	The Fair's service does not cover any of that (§3). All 56 of our Russian profiles are registered in Guangzhou	This is the part we sell: +86 139 2416 6640, with dates, city and what the day looks like. Ask for the interpreter by the Ref. number on their directory card. For another province, ask whether the named person will travel — travel and accommodation must then be on the quotation. If we say no, use another agency or ask your supplier whether they have a Russian-speaking salesperson; we will not argue you out of either	Us, for the interpreter — and the answer may be no
You want the same interpreter in the halls and at the factory	The Fair's own interpreter does not leave the complex. Ours enters the halls only on an accompanying-personnel badge: under the 140th session's notice an "interpreter" must submit proof of a translation qualification — 25 of our records have the shape of the third route (§6) — and the buyer is asked to have the companion's resident identity card number ready; applied for per phase, at least two calendar days ahead	Ask us for names whose record matches the third route and who confirm they hold a PRC resident identity card, and apply before your hall day. If the Fair refuses, split the days: the Fair's service in the halls, ours outside	The Canton Fair, for the badge. Us, for the calendar
You are bringing your own interpreter from Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus or anywhere outside mainland China	The 140th session's notice does not say who may be a companion; it only asks buyers to have the companion's resident identity card number ready, and it does not say what happens if the companion has no PRC resident identity card	Before you apply for the badge, ask the Fair in writing whether this person can be badged as your companion and, if not, whether they can enter on a buyer badge of their own: 4000-888-999 in China, (0086) 20-28888999 from abroad, info@cantonfair.org.cn — and get the answer in writing. Until you have it, do not plan around that badge	The Canton Fair. We do not speak for them
You are a buyer from Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan, or you hold a Chinese passport	The 140th session's notice says you may apply for an "assistant" badge only — the "interpreter" badge is not open to you	Plan on the Fair's own in-hall service, or on our people working with you outside the halls. Questions about this rule go to the Fair: 4000-888-999, (0086) 20-28888999 or info@cantonfair.org.cn	The Canton Fair
You arrive before the opening, or on 20–22 or 28–30 October	No phase is open on those six October days, though the Fair's own booking window (15 October – 4 November) spans them. They are not free days for suppliers: each block is when the phase before moves out and the phase after moves in, so a Phase 2 exhibitor is tied up on both. Before the opening, 1 October is China's National Day, a public holiday; the official holiday schedule decides the days around it	Ask each supplier in writing whether they will receive you on the date you want, then book an interpreter for the days they confirm: +86 139 2416 6640	The supplier decides whether to receive you. We decide whether an interpreter is free
You are reading the Fair's official Russian guide to find your section	Seven of its 55 section names, on our reading, point a Russian reader at a different product from the Chinese original — bags appear as «Упаковка», hardware as «Аппаратные средства»	Use the table in §4, and copy the Chinese section name into your message when you ask a supplier or the Fair which phase they are in. If a name is still unclear: 4000-888-999, (0086) 20-28888999, info@cantonfair.org.cn	The Canton Fair — it publishes the section list

Three things this table deliberately does not do. It does not give you a travel time to any factory: we hold no measured travel-time data, and we are not going to estimate one for someone who will plan a day around it — ask us for the specific route once you have the address. It does not tell you that you need us: of the eleven rows above, six turn on a decision by the Canton Fair. And it does not cover two readers who are in the body instead: if you need a conference (simultaneous) interpreter, read §5; if you are not travelling and want someone to walk the Fair for you, read the end of §6.

2. The Fair sells interpreting itself: CNY 800–1,000 a day for Russian, published

The Canton Fair runs its own interpreting service through its Buyer Service Centres. Russian is one of the ten languages on it. Their page is at cantonfair.org.cn, in Chinese and English; on the link address itself, see §11.

The scope line is the whole story, and it is one sentence:

We provide interpretation service inside the Canton Fair Complex during opening hours of the Fair.

That is the official English text, quoted in full. The Chinese original words it slightly differently: the service is provided by the Buyer Service Centre, and only during the Fair's opening period. The rates are published, and Russian falls in the "other languages" band:

Rate: English：CNY 600/day/ for booth interpreter (English), CNY 800/day/ for exhibition escort interpreter ; Other languages: CNY 800/day/ for booth interpreter (other languages), CNY 1000/day/ for exhibition escort interpreter (other languages). 【Note: Less than 4 hours of service is charged as half a day, while over 4 hours is charged as a full day.】

Every character inside that quotation is the official English, including the stray full-width colon after "English" and the space before the semicolon. The original sets those four lines as separate paragraphs; we have joined them with single spaces so they read as one block. Payment is on site in CNY at the Buyer Service Centre of Areas A, B, C and D. During the Fair, 15 October to 4 November, seven counters take bookings; reservations outside the Fair's opening period run 30 September to 14 October on (020)8913-8055 and ISC@cantonfair.org.cn, and that number does not take bookings during the Fair. The seven counters each have their own number or numbers, all on the same email:

Area A, service counter 8-1 — 86-20-89130395
Area B, service counter 11-1 — 86-20-89061946
Area B, Registration Office — 86-20-89130185, 86-20-89130195
Area C, corridor bridge 15.3 — 86-20-89074104
Area C, Registration Office — 86-20-89074105, 86-20-89074106
Area D, service counter 20-5 — 86-20-89139941
Area D, Registration Office — 86-20-89133215, 86-20-89133270

One more detail worth knowing before you plan around this page: it carries no publication date and no revision date. Everything in this section, including both booking windows and the counter numbers, rests on a page that does not say when it was last touched. Call before you rely on it.

And a divergence worth knowing about. The Chinese version of that page closes with one calm sentence — interpreter numbers are limited, first come first served. The English version closes with two:

Reminder: Please note that the number of the interpreters is limited; first come, first served.We recommend making your reservation as early as possible!

The second sentence exists only in English. The missing space after "served." is in the original. The more urgent-sounding version is the one that suits a seller, which is why we are pointing out that the Chinese page is the calmer one rather than quoting the English at you as if it were the only text.

3. Where the Fair's line stops — and that is the part we sell

Read the scope sentence again: inside the Canton Fair Complex, during opening hours. Both halves are limits.

Not covered by it, on our reading of that one sentence:

A factory visit in Dongguan, Foshan, Zhongshan or anywhere else outside the complex.
Anything at your hotel — a follow-up meeting, a sample review, a supper where the real number gets agreed.
Any trip to another province.
The six days when no phase is open: 20, 21 and 22 October, and 28, 29 and 30 October. Those are the changeover days between phases. For an exhibitor they are move-out and move-in days; for you as a buyer they mean there is no hall open to walk into.
The days before the Fair opens. The Fair published the 140th session's move-in schedule on 22 September 2026 (the notice is dated 18 September): Phase 1 exhibitors build their stands from 8 to 13 October in Areas A, B and C, and from 7 to 12 October in Area D, where the processing-machinery section starts on 5 October. On those days Phase 1 suppliers are working in the halls.

Note what that means for the Fair's own booking window. Reservations "during opening hours of the Canton Fair" are described as 15 October to 4 November — a range that includes 21 October and 29 October, on which nothing is open. The window is a booking window, not a statement that the halls are open every day inside it.

So here is the honest division of labour. In the halls, on fair days, the Fair's own desk is the route that does not depend on us: a published rate, a published booking window — and, on its own page, a limited number of interpreters, first come first served. We publish no Russian rate, so we are not claiming to sit above or below their CNY 1,000. Outside those two limits their service does not reach, and ours can be asked for.

4. The dates and the sections — and seven Russian names to read with care

The 2026 Attendance Guide for Overseas Buyers exists in ten languages — Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. The Russian edition is a four-page PDF listed on the guide's own page. It has no text layer, so nothing in it can be copied and pasted; on 23 September 2026 we rendered its section page as an image and read it by hand, alongside the Chinese edition of the same page, and we used our transcription of the English edition from 21 September. The three list the same 55 rows in the same order, so every Russian name can be matched to its Chinese original row by row. We did not open the other seven editions, so we are not telling you what they contain.

That row-by-row match is where this section earns its place. On seven rows, the official Russian name points a Russian reader somewhere other than the Chinese original does. The last column is our reading of the Russian word, not an official statement:

Phase, row	Chinese original	Official English	Official Russian	What the Russian word usually means to a reader
Phase 1, row 7	工程机械	Construction Machinery	Машиностроение	Machine building as an industry in general. Construction machinery is «строительная техника»
Phase 1, row 18	五金	Hardware	Аппаратные средства	Computer hardware. 五金 is metal hardware — locks, fittings, fasteners
Phase 2, row 11	编织及藤铁工艺品	Weaving, Rattan and Iron Products	Ткань, ротанг и железо	Fabric, rattan and iron. The Chinese is woven, rattan and iron crafts
Phase 3, row 8	服装饰物及配件	Fashion Accessories and Fittings	Модные аксессуары и гаджеты	Adds "gadgets", which the Chinese does not have
Phase 3, row 10	鞋	Shoes	Туфли	A narrower word for shoes; general footwear is «обувь»
Phase 3, row 11	箱包	Cases and Bags	Упаковка	Packaging. 箱包 is luggage and bags
Phase 3, row 21	乡村振兴特色产品	Traditional Chinese Specialties	Восстановление сельских районов	Rural revitalisation — the policy name only; "specialty products" is dropped

If you buy bags and read only the Russian guide, you will not find a section called «Сумки»: yours is «Упаковка», in Phase 3. If you buy locks and fittings, «Аппаратные средства» is you, in Phase 1. When you check a section with a supplier or with the Fair, copy the Chinese characters from the second column into your message: the Chinese is the original the other editions translate.

The harm also runs the other way, when a reader takes a Russian name at face value. If you buy fabric, «Ткань, ротанг и железо» is not your section: fabrics are in Phase 3, «Текстильное сырье и ткани». If you buy gadgets or consumer electronics, «Модные аксессуары и гаджеты» is not yours either: consumer electronics are in Phase 1, which has closed by the time Phase 3 opens. If you buy packaging, «Упаковка» is luggage and bags; ask the Fair where packaging sits.

Two official documents disagree slightly on the list itself, so here is exactly what we took from each. The section-to-phase assignment comes from Attachment 1 to the 140th-session booth application notice, which is specific to this session and lists 54 sections (19 / 14 / 21). The dates come from the Attendance Guide, which is a general 2026 document printing April and October side by side and lists 55 sections (19 / 15 / 21). The extra line is in Phase 2: Prefabricated House and Courtyard Facilities. It is printed below with a mark, because Attachment 1 does not list it for the 140th session. The names and running order below follow the English edition of the guide; the Russian version of this article uses the Russian edition's names, and the Chinese version follows Attachment 1.

Phase	Dates, 140th session	Sections (Attachment 1)	Sections (Attendance Guide)
Phase 1	15–19 October 2026	19	19
Phase 2	23–27 October 2026	14	15
Phase 3	31 October – 4 November 2026	21	21

Phase 1 — Household Electrical Appliances; Consumer Electronics and Information Products; Industrial Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing; Processing Machinery Equipment; Power Machinery and Electric Power; General Machinery and Mechanical Basic Parts; Construction Machinery; Agricultural Machinery; New Materials and Chemical Products; New Energy Vehicles and Smart Mobility; Vehicles; Vehicle Spare Parts; Motorcycles; Bicycles; Lighting Equipment; Electronic and Electrical Products; New Energy Resources; Hardware; Tools.

Phase 2 — General Ceramics; Kitchenware and Tableware; Household Items; Glass Artware; Home Decorations; Gardening Products; Festival Products; Gifts and Premiums; Clocks, Watches and Optical Instruments; Art Ceramics; Weaving, Rattan and Iron Products; Building and Decorative Materials; Sanitary and Bathroom Equipment; Furniture; Prefabricated House and Courtyard Facilities (guide only — not in Attachment 1 for this session).

Phase 3 — Toys; Children, Baby and Maternity Products; Kids' Wear; Men and Women's Clothing; Underwear; Sports and Casual Wear; Furs, Leather, Downs and Related Products; Fashion Accessories and Fittings; Textile Raw Materials and Fabrics; Shoes; Cases and Bags; Home Textiles; Carpets and Tapestries; Office Supplies; Medicines, Health Products and Medical Devices; Food; Sports, Travel and Recreation Products; Personal Care Products; Toiletries; Pet Products and Food; Traditional Chinese Specialties.

The English edition carries a caveat at the foot of that page. This is our transcription of the English image; the Russian box says the same thing and is quoted in the Russian version of this article:

Notice: The Canton Fair will also feature the Service Robots Zone, the Intelligent Healthcare Zone and other innovations. Please refer to Canton Fair official website for the latest updates of section and phase arrangements.

Two sentences after the opening word. If your product is chemicals or new materials, read that Phase 1 line twice: it is in the first phase, 15–19 October.

5. How many Russian interpreters we have: 56 — and what their profiles show

Our public Guangzhou interpreter directory holds 812 profiles, every one of them registered in Guangzhou. Counting the foreign languages listed across those profiles:

English 631, Japanese 248, French 100, Spanish 65, Russian 56, Korean 51, German 32, Italian 17, Vietnamese 8, Arabic 7, Thai 6, Indonesian 4, Turkish 3, Portuguese 1.

Russian is fifth of fourteen: 56 of 812 profiles, 6.9%. Here is what the 56 profiles show — our own data, counted on 23 September 2026:

English as well as Russian: 28 of the 56. One also lists Japanese and Korean, one Spanish.
Day rate: not published on any of them. All 812 profiles are quote-only.

On education, we classified all 56 by the Chinese card, which is the source record:

22 record a university in the Chinese mainland and a Russian-language major — Heilongjiang University, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, South China Normal University, Beijing Foreign Studies University and others.
14 record a university in Russia (8), Ukraine (5) or Belarus (1).

What that means for your booking:

Ask for the person, not the language. With 56 profiles there may be more than one name for your date. Ask for the interpreter by the Ref. number on the directory card.
Conference work is a separate booking. If your booking is a conference rather than a fair, say so first, and we will tell you whether we can staff it.
We publish no price for Russian. Our published rates for consecutive and escort interpreting "start at ¥200 per hour or ¥800 per full day, depending on language pair and subject" — that is a general floor, not a Russian price. Note that CNY 800 a day appears twice in this article for two unrelated things: the Fair's booth-interpreter rate for non-English languages, and the bottom of our own general escort range. Neither is a quotation for Russian, and we are not going to pretend we undercut a CNY 1,000 we have not quoted against.

6. If you bring your own interpreter, or want a Chinese one badged

Applications for the 140th session's overseas-buyer accompanying-personnel badge opened on 28 September 2026, under the Canton Fair's notice Badge Application for Accompanying Personnel for Overseas Buyers of the 140th Canton Fair is Now Open, published that day in official Chinese and English versions. Everything quoted below comes from it.

Start with what it does not say. The notice does not say who may be a companion; it closes by asking buyers to have ready "the accompanying personnel’s mobile phone number and resident identity card number", and it does not say what happens if the companion has no PRC resident identity card. If you are flying in from Moscow, Almaty or Minsk with your own Russian-speaking assistant, ask the organiser in writing before you apply for the badge — 4000-888-999 inside China, (0086) 20-28888999 from abroad, info@cantonfair.org.cn — and get the answer in writing; we do not answer that question for the Fair.

Only the buyer can start the application, it is made through the Fair's own website and Buyer Service System, and it must go in at least two calendar days ahead. A new buyer has to have completed pre-registration and submitted their own Overseas Buyer Badge application first. There are two types, and the interpreter type has a qualification test:

III. Types of Accompanying Personnel Accompanying personnel are divided into “assistants” and “interpreters.” Interpreters are additionally required to submit proof of translation qualifications (China Accreditation Test for Translators and Interpreters (CATTI), National Accreditation Examinations for Translators and Interpreters (NAETI), or a graduation certificate in a foreign language major from a higher education institution in the Chinese mainland).

Section III is two sentences in the official English and both are quoted; the heading and the body are joined here by a single space where the original had a line break, and the curly quotation marks are the original's. Applied to our Russian profiles:

The third route asks for a foreign-language major, not a Russian one. 25 profiles record a Chinese mainland school and a foreign-language major — 22 of them Russian, 3 English or Japanese — so their records have the shape the third route describes. Whether any record is a qualifying graduation certificate — and whether the school counts as a higher education institution — is the Fair's decision, not ours.
The 14 who studied in Russia, Ukraine or Belarus do not match the third route as written, which names an institution in the Chinese mainland. We do not know how the Fair treats a foreign degree, and we are not going to guess.

The quota and the exclusions:

IV. Quota Each buyer may apply for up to 2 accompanying personnel per phase, with a maximum of one interpreter and one assistant each. Buyers from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), the Macao SAR and the Taiwan region as well as those holding a Chinese passport are not eligible to apply for an interpreter badge and can only apply for an assistant badge.

Section IV is two sentences and both are quoted; the heading is joined by a single space. Note that the quota is per phase: if you are attending two phases, ask the Fair whether that means two applications.

The fee is CNY 300 per day plus a CNY 50 administrative fee, non-refundable once the badge has been scanned by an entry gate, and CNY 200 to replace a lost badge. For a full five-day phase that is CNY 1,550 in badge alone, on our reading that the CNY 50 is charged once, before the interpreter's own fee. Three more provisions worth knowing: if an accompanying person's badge record from previous sessions shows irregularities, an alert is triggered and extra documents must be submitted for review — so leave more than the two-day minimum; anyone who already holds an exhibitor or exhibitor-representative badge for the same phase cannot hold an accompanying-personnel badge for it; and anyone who has obtained a service personnel badge (the move-in/move-out badge of exhibitors and construction) for the session, or whose exhibitor or exhibitor-representative badge application was rejected, cannot hold one for the whole session.

One more sentence deserves a careful reading:

Buyers and their accompanying personnel must ensure a genuine accompanying relationship.

Section VIII runs to three sentences in the official English; this is the first, and the other two set out what happens if it is breached. The Chinese original packs the same section into one sentence, and that difference in sentence breaks belongs to the English text, not to us. The notice does not define "genuine accompanying relationship". We sell commercially hired interpreters — which is exactly the thing that phrase might or might not be aimed at. We do not know where the Fair draws that line, and we are not going to guess in a page that sells you the service. If it matters to you, ask them before you submit: 4000-888-999 inside China, (0086) 20-28888999 from abroad, info@cantonfair.org.cn, and ask for the reply in writing (that is practical advice, not legal advice about what counts as evidence). The consequences the notice sets out for getting it wrong are confiscation of both badges, removal from the venue, placement on the Canton Fair badge application blacklist, and no refund for the confiscated badges.

One more thing this route cannot do for you: only a buyer can initiate it, so it is no use if you are not travelling and want someone to walk the Fair on your behalf. Ask the Fair on the numbers above.

7. Choosing among the 56, and when to fall back to English

Each profile declares which Canton Fair product categories the interpreter is comfortable with. These are self-declared, not tested. Across the 56 Russian profiles:

General trade 33, garments and textiles 17, electronics and electrical 9, building and home 8, food and drink 6, machinery and auto 4, chemicals and materials 4, logistics 2, cosmetics and daily chemicals 2, medical and health 1, hardware and tools 1.

Read that against the phases in §4. A Phase 3 garment buyer has the widest choice: 17 profiles. A Phase 1 buyer of machinery has four declaring machinery and one declaring hardware and tools. If your day is a technical audit, tell us the product first and ask which of the names has declared it — and then ask the person, because a declared category is a statement, not a test.

The fallback is English, and it is wide: 631 of our 812 profiles list English, and 28 of the 56 Russian profiles list both — useful when one day moves between two languages. The Fair's own rate card is cheaper in English too — CNY 600 a day for a booth interpreter and CNY 800 for an escort, against CNY 800 and CNY 1,000 for other languages. If your English is workable for negotiation, that route is cheaper and wider. We are saying so even though the Russian booking would be worth more to us.

One practical note, because it comes up every session: one interpreter cannot cover two booths at once, and a day split between the complex and a factory in another city is one person's whole day. Plan people per simultaneous conversation, not per company.

8. Our lead time, both readings, as dates

Our FAQ answers the booking-lead-time question in all three languages. The English version:

For rare language pairs or large conferences, book 4-8 weeks ahead. Common pairs (Chinese↔English/Japanese/Korean) can usually be scheduled 1-2 weeks ahead.

Two sentences, quoted in full from our FAQ. Russian is on neither list, so here are both readings, rather than the one that suits a seller:

Read as a common pair, one to two weeks: two weeks before Phase 1 is 1 October, before Phase 2 9 October, before Phase 3 17 October.
Read as a rare pair, four weeks at the floor: Phase 1's point is 17 September, Phase 2's 25 September, Phase 3's 3 October.
At the eight-week end of that band, each point falls four weeks before the four-week one.
The phases run 15–19 October, 23–27 October and 31 October – 4 November. The Fair's own in-hall service takes bookings at seven counters during the Fair, 15 October – 4 November, and its reservation line for the non-fair period runs 30 September – 14 October — dates from its undated page.

That is the entire basis for any urgency in this article. Not "interpreters get booked up" — a count of days against a number we published before you arrived.

If you are past the point that applies to you: message us on WhatsApp at +86 139 2416 6640, or through the contact page, and say so in the first line; ask directly whether anyone is free and what it costs. Then go to the Fair as well, because their in-hall service is the route that does not depend on us at all: during the Fair, 15 October – 4 November, call your area's counter (numbers in §2); outside it, 30 September – 14 October, write to ISC@cantonfair.org.cn as well as calling (020)8913-8055 — the page does not say whether that line is staffed on public holidays.

9. What we could not find out, and are not going to pretend we did

For our Arabic article of 21 September we built a section out of our Canton Fair exhibitor directory — 26,270 companies — by scanning company names, product categories and keywords for self-declared market words, and found 52 companies. We ran the same method for Russian, first with seventeen terms — Russia, Russian language, the single character 俄, CIS, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Moscow, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia — and then with seven more: GOST, 中哈 (China–Kazakhstan), Eurasia, Far East, Siberia, Vladivostok and a shorter form of CIS. Every hit is printed in our working file; we read all of them.

What survives:

8 exhibitors out of 26,270 name Russia or Central Asia as a market in their own keyword line: one each in Shandong, Liaoning, Guangdong and Xinjiang, two in Jiangsu and two in Zhejiang. One of them writes five separate keyword lines about shoes for Russia; one describes a branch in Uzbekistan.
8 more use "Russian" as a product style or standard rather than a market: matryoshka dolls, Russian-style kettle sets and teapots, motors built to the Russian standard (two companies), Russian workwear, Russian security doors, and one company whose only keyword is GOST, the Russian standard. They are in Jilin, Heilongjiang (two), Fujian (two), Henan, Zhejiang and Shandong.
2 have a company name that reads China–Russia or China–Kazakhstan — 华俄 in Wuhan, and 中哈 in Khorgos on the Kazakh border. A name may or may not describe a market.
Everything else was a coincidence of characters: 中亚 inside three company names, every 东欧 hit a fragment of a longer word — 广东欧…, 山东欧… or 中东欧美 ("Middle East, Europe, America") — and Eurasia and Far East only as parts of company or brand names. Zero hits for the Russian language, Belarus, the CIS, Ukraine, Moscow, Siberia or Vladivostok.
One thing this method cannot see at all: a company whose location, not its words, implies the trade — one registered in a border port, say. We did not count those.

Eighteen companies in 26,270, one of them in Guangdong, is not a market map, and it is their marketing copy, not a customer list. So we are not going to tell you what Russian buyers typically buy at the Canton Fair. In the 1,200 rows of the Fair's own content stream that we pulled on 23 September 2026 (continuous from 3 November 2025 to 22 September 2026), zero titles mention Russia.

We also probed whether official Russian versions exist of two of the Fair web pages this article cites — the interpreting page and the Attendance Guide page — by requesting each content number with the suffix RU. Both return empty, while the same numbers with EN return the English version. The requests are logged to file. Note the narrow shape of that claim: those web pages have no Russian version; the printed guide in §4 does have one.

10. How to reach us

Russian, or English for the days Russian cannot be covered — either way:

WhatsApp +86 139 2416 6640 (direct link); on WeChat our contact page lists Saralee93.
Or the contact page.
To see who is on file: the interpreter directory.
And our FAQ.

The two earlier articles in this series are how to hire an interpreter for the Canton Fair and the badge rules.

11. Sources

Canton Fair Interpretation Service, official page, Chinese and English, contentNo 802506534755274752 / 802506534755274752EN. Ten service languages including Russian; rates; booking windows; seven in-fair counters. No publication date and no revision date on the page. Retrieved 23 September 2026. The Fair's site is a single-page application, so a link address does not by itself fix which language or which document you get: the stable identifiers are the content numbers, and we retrieved every text below through the site's own content interface using them.
2026 Attendance Guide for Overseas Buyers of the Canton Fair, contentNo 598494791797825536 (Chinese page dated 2 March 2026) and 598494791797825536EN (English page dated 30 July 2026). Ten language PDFs; the Russian and Chinese editions were read by hand from renderings on 23 September 2026, the English edition on 21 September 2026. Customer service centre: 4000-888-999 in China, 86-20-28-888-999 from abroad, info@cantonfair.org.cn.
Attachment 1 to the 140th-session export-exhibition booth application notice (5 May 2026): section-to-phase table, 54 sections, 19 / 14 / 21.
Badge Application for Accompanying Personnel for Overseas Buyers of the 140th Canton Fair is Now Open, published 28 September 2026, contentNo cc18c57e7b58462b910ef5efb55cdafd, with the Chinese original 《第140届广交会已开放境外采购商陪同人员办证申请》, contentNo 098f22042c9845d294800d96ab65d415. Quoted above for sections III, IV and VIII; the other badge rules in §6 and the Fair's customer service contacts come from it too. Checked 6 October 2026.
Our own data: the Guangzhou interpreter directory (812 profiles, counted 23 September 2026) and the Canton Fair exhibitor directory (26,270 companies, built from the 139th-session exhibitor list). Both are our records, not official registers.