Практикум по синхронному переводу с русского языка на английский

надежным союзником для иностранных партнеров — the problem
here is the word союзник. "Ally" does not work in English, because it is
too politically tinged, and if you use "partner" here, then the word will
be repeated twice once "foreign partners" come along. Not the worst of
crimes, and if necessary "partners" can be used again, but a substitute in
the first instance might be "associate" or "interlocutor."

1. 
   вырабатывает свой путь — this seemingly innocent phrase is fraught
   with peril. "Is working out its path" belongs to long-dead Moscow
   Newsisms and Tassisms. The idea is that Moscow is "producing its own
   plan," "developing its own policy," or, colloquially, "has its own plan," for
   a favorable investment climate, etc.
   

1. 
   вступивший на путь преобразований, не может обойтись только
   собственными ресурсами — there are several choices here. In any case,
   as in the above example, the literal translation of путь has no place here.
   
2. 
   "Any city which has begun major changes" is an easy beginning. "Cannot get by" will get the colloquial tone of the speech across, and the sentence could be finished with "solely its own resources," which would save a good many syllables.
   

5. 
   на этом же уровне был и 1998 год — the sentence is another example
   of "think nominative," and turn the initial words in an oblique case into
   a nominative subject: "The same level." If the interpreter begins with "at
   this level," it will be difficult to follow through with an idiomatic English
   sentence. "Was true for" or "held true for" gets across был, since "was"
   or "happened" will not work in English.
   

5.