Understanding Russian Phonecards

You take a phonecards with Cyrillic letters in your hands and...
If you are not familiar with a language which uses Cyrillic letters it's hard to understand this 'mysterious' text written on a card. To place description of such a card into collection list one have to describe image depicted on it. But often this description is limited to following ones: 'building', 'truck', 'red arrow', 'people', etc. This can lead to misunderstanding in swap process with other collectors.
Often we see text labels which in many cases can help to identify a phonecard. But how to read them, understand and type into collection list without Cyrillic keyboard?

I hope this short explanation can help you:

I. To read Cyrillic text
II. To type Cyrillic text with Latin keyboard
III. To understand some common used text labels

Please, note that article relates to Russian language. Other languages which use Cyrillic letters (Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Bulgarian, etc.) don't have some letters from Russian alphabet and have some additional ones.

The main idea of reading Cyrillic text is that one letter represents one sound. Of course, your pronunciation will not become perfect but understandable. Once we can identify letters/sounds the only task is to type Russian text with Latin keyboard.
The first table below will help you to solve these problems. This is transliteration table based on common used conventions. There can be some differences from other because it isn't standard, but transliterated text will be clearly understandable for persons who use Russian.
The second table at the bottom of this page is some kind of Russian-English pictorial dictionary. It has images which could be often find on Russian phonecards. Also it contains Latin transliteration, translation and, if needed, a brief explanation.

If you have any problems in identifying phonecards with Cyrillic letters, please, contact me. I'll try to help.
Happy collecting!

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Transliteration of Russian alphabet

Russian alphabet	Latin transliteration	Sounds like...
	A	Barbara
	B	Boris
	V	Victor
	G	Graham
	D	David
	E	/soft E, needed to be YE, but is used oftenly/
	YO	New York
	ZH	James /closely to/
	Z	Zero
	I	Silvia
	I	May /needed to be YI, using I simplifies text/
	K	Kevin
	L	Leonard
	M	Michael
	N	Nicholas
	O	John
	P	Peter
	R	Roger
	S	Steven
	T	Tom
	U	Douglas
	F	Francis
	KH	Harry
	TS	/e.g. tsar/
	CH	Charley
	SH	Sheila
	SHCH	/e.g. shchi/
	'	/hard sign/
	Y	Larry
	'	/soft sign/
	E	Andrew
	YU	Utah
	YA	Yahoo!

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Pictorial Dictionary

Last updated: 24-July-2001