KZBlog

Apparently the Japanese would pronounce Ilya as Kitafuka. I know this because Aleksandr Krotov, a resident of Kostanai, a city in north Kazakhstan, developed an iPhone app called “Your Name in Japanese”.

According to his press release, this program does not translate your name, but transliterates by using the closest corresponding Latin letters to the Japanese spelling of your name. Anyone who has studied Japanese and wants to explain how Ilya becomes Kitafuka or Linda turns into Zukitoteka, please leave a comment.

This is, I believe the first iPhone app made in Kazakhstan! Krotov founded his company, Korotoff Republic for the express purpose of marketing iPod apps; in the press release, Krotov says:

Your name in Japanese was realized to explore the mechanism of adding and promotion in app store…With their strong blend of design and development skills, Korotoff Republic’s passion is to craft elegant, easy-to-use applications for the iPhone platform.

So we look forward to more interesting things in the future for the iPhone and the iPod.

iPods are sold in Kazakhstan for around $500 in Mac stores, but iPhones, which cost around $1000, are sold in many electronics and mobile phone shops. There doesn’t appear to be any documentation on Apple’s websites about a license to sell in Kazakhstan or links to Kazakh stores so the legality of the iPhones especially is highly questionable! That has not stopped iPhones from becoming the hot new trend in Kazakhstan among young people.