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I'm about to travel to Russia, and I made sure to book only accommodations that offer Wi-Fi to its customers, but a question came to my mind.

As Cyrillic is the standard alphabet in Russia, is there a chance that the passwords in Wi-Fi networks will have to be entered in this alphabet? How do I know which keys to press on a Latin keyboard, so that my devices can connect to the network?

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    Most accommodations that deal with foreigners would likely use only Arabic Numerals and the Roman Alphabet, for the exact reason you gave.
    – user13044
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 1:34
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    I suppose it's possible, but I would imagine that a hotel in Russia that caters to non-Russians would set up a password using either Latin letters or simply numbers. Otherwise, you can enable a Russian keyboard for your device so you can type whatever you need.
    – Greg Hewgill
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 1:35
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    @GregHewgill: "a hotel in Russia that caters to non-Russians" - while Russia is certainly the largest one, let's not forget that Cyrillic script is used in some other countries/languages, too.
    – O. R. Mapper
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 13:35
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    @O.R.Mapper yes, good point. My specific question is whether I'll have some issue connecting my tablet and phone in Russia, but the question can be made broader to encompass other countries (even other alphabets) and other eletronic gadgets.
    – gmauch
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 13:40
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    Just adding my two cents. I've been living in Russia my whole life and never have I seen a non-latin password or access code in use. It's always Latin letters and/or numbers.
    – Dmitrii Erokhin
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 14:39

6 Answers 6

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Do not worry, Wifi pass phrases for personal use should only be in printable ASCII characters, in other words English characters. They do not support Unicode or other codepages.

For more details check the Wikipedia's Wi-Fi Protected Access page.

Except if you are redirected to a webpage for authentication, that's a whole different story and Karlson's answer is applicable.

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  • If, however you need the cyrillic keyboard and you are using a windows machine, follow the following "Learn Russian" Tutorial. Keyboard layouts are also available for Mac and Linux without much additional fuss.
    – Cole Busby
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 16:51
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    Have been 2 weeks in Russia, connected to dozens of networks and not a single one had Cyrillic characters. In fact most wifis (in cafes, bar, restaurants) were password-less.
    – gmauch
    Commented Oct 25, 2015 at 22:58
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I am Russian and I never met a WiFi password in Cyrillic.

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For Android depending on the model of your phone you may have to add Russian Language to the available keyboards.

I have Galaxy S5 and under Settings -> Languages and Input you should be able to do this from the Galaxy App Store.

You should be able to do the same for the iPad just add a Russian Language, which will allow you to switch to it and make the keyboard available for use.

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    It would seem to be a good idea to do this before travelling while you've got easy data access. You might want to enter local text for google translate, or to copy down an address.
    – Chris H - UK
    Commented Oct 8, 2015 at 13:47
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    @ChrisH and while you are at it, also save the dictionary in Google Translate to the device so you don't need internet access for translating stuff on the way.
    – simbabque
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 9:11
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    @simbabque I use an Android app called "offline dictionaries" (I quite like the way I can downloaded the content of e.g. wiktionary.fr for languages that aren't a complete mystery to me), but your point holds.
    – Chris H - UK
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 10:06
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I've been living in Russia for 3 years, lived in various hostels and hotels, but I never saw a Wi-Fi with a cyrillic password anywhere. I'm not even sure that it's technically possible.

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I traveled in Russia in 2011 with a tablet, smartphone, Vita etc. Every WiFi network was in Latin characters. As with most nations they try to be somewhat accommodating to tourists and English is a good baseline, even for people on holiday from other parts of Europe.

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I have been to Russia. Once I was hosted by a friend in Moscow. He said I could use the wifi. He gave me the password. Accessing to his wifi was just like anywhere else on the planet.

Here i show you a ticket of a Cafetería in Moscow called Costa Coffee where they specify the login and password to access their wifi. As you can see, it is in latin alphabet. Take a look.

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