The article is devoted to the consideration of one of the aspects of the problem of the interlingual translation process: transformations. The relevance of studying the use of transformations is due to the goal of achieving equivalence and the condition of observing the norms of the target language. Based on the translation of J. Bowen's novel «A Street Cat Named Bob» by comparing the source text with the translation text, the article examines the lexical transformations used in the translation of descriptions of the urban environment static elements from English into Russian. Particular attention is paid to the issues of defining a translation transformation, the choice of a convenient classification, as well as the reasons for using certain transformations. The study confirms the opinion of the majority of linguists that the use of translation transformations is inevitable: it is due to the differences in the lexical and grammatical systems of the two languages. E. I. Kolyabina, translator of the novel “A Street Cat Named Bob”, resorts to a large number of transformations and sometimes uses them in combination. Analysis of the translation text shows that the choice of transformation can be forced, or dictated by the translator’s personal preferences.