Guidance

Russian Romanization (April 2019)

Updated 5 June 2019

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/romanisation-systems/russian-romanization-april-2019

BGN/PCGN 1947 System

The BGN/PCGN system for Russian was adopted by the BGN in 1944 and by the PCGN in 1947 for use in romanizing names written in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.

  Russian Russian Unicode Romanization
1 A а А а 0410; 0430 a
2 Б б Б б 0411; 0431 b
3 В в В в 0412; 0432 v
4 Г г Г г 0413; 0433 g
5 Д д Д д 0414; 0434 d
6 Е е Е е 0415; 0435 e, ye Note 1
7 Ё ё Ё ё 0401; 0451 ë, yë Note 2
8 Ж ж Ж ж 0416; 0436 zh
9 З з З з 0417; 0437 z
10 И и И и 0418; 0438 i
11 Й й Й й 0419; 0439 y
12 К к К к 041A; 043A k
13 Л л Л л 041B; 043B l
14 М м М м 041C; 043C m
15 Н н Н н 041D; 043D n
16 О о О о 041E; 043E o
17 П п П п 041F; 043F p
18 Р р Р р 0420; 0440 r
19 С с С с 0421; 0441 s
20 Т т Т m 0422; 0442 t
21 У у У у 0423; 0443 u
22 Ф ф Ф ф 0424; 0444 f
23 Х х Х х 0425; 0445 kh
24 Ц ц Ц ц 0426; 0446 ts
25 Ч ч Ч ч 0427; 0447 ch
26 Ш ш Ш ш 0428; 0448 sh
27 Щ щ Щ щ 0429; 0449 shch
28 Ъ ъ Ъ ъ 042A; 044A ”
29 Ы ы Ы ы 042B; 044B y
30 Ь ь Ь ь 042C; 044C ’
31 Э э Э э 042D; 044D e
32 Ю ю Ю ю 042E; 044E yu
33 Я я Я я 042F; 044F ya

Notes

  • The character e should be romanized ye initially, after the vowel characters a, e, ё, и, о, у, ы, э, ю, and я, and after й, ъ, and ь. In all other instances, it should be romanized e.

  • The character ё is considered the 7th character of the Russian alphabet; however, the dieresis is generally not shown in writing. The character ё, whether displayed in the source document with or without dieresis, should be romanized yë initially, after the vowels a, e, ё, и, о, у, ы, э, ю, and я, and after й, ъ, and ь; otherwise, it should be romanized ё.

  • Unusual Russian character sequences occurring primarily in non-Russian-language names may be romanized as shown below in order to provide differentiation from regularly-occurring digraphs and character sequences.

Russian Romanization
й before а, у, ы, or э у·
ы before а, у, ы, or э у·
ы after any vowel character ·у
э after any consonant character except й ·е
TC t·s
шч sh·ch

  • Unicode values are shown with the uppercase Cyrillic character first, followed by the lowercase character.

  • An inventory of letter-diacritic combinations, with their Unicode encoding, in addition to the unmodified letters of the basic Roman script is:

All apostrophes appearing in romanization are U+2019

  • Ë(U+00CB)
  • ë(U+00EB)
  • The Romanization column shows only lowercase forms but, when romanizing, uppercase and lowercase Roman letters as appropriate should be used.
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