How to make Russian letters in contacts on Xiaomi: all ways + error solving

You added a contact on a Xiaomi, Redmi or POCO smartphone, but instead of Russian letters, you display Krakozabras, question marks or Latin characters? The problem is familiar to many users - especially after updating the firmware, resetting or transferring data from another device. 90% of cases are due to incorrect regional settings, sync failures with Google account or bugs in the branded Contacts app.

In this article, we will discuss all the working ways to get Cyrillic back in touch, from basic system language change to manually editing VCF files and resetting cache. Separately, we will focus on common errors (for example, when Russian letters are displayed only in some applications) and explain why standard tips like “reboot your phone” often do not work. If you encounter a problem after upgrading to MIUI 14/15 or HyperOS, you will find a solution here too.

Why Russian letters are replaced by Krakozabra or Latin alphabet

The root of the problem lies in the discrepancy of the codings between:

• 📱 System language (e.g. English, but with Russian keyboard)
• 🔄 Regional settings (default country: China or the United States)
• ☁️ Sync with Google/MI- account (data is loaded incorrectly encrypted)
• 📂 Local Contact Base (contacts.db file corrupted)

Most often, failure occurs after:

• ⚡ Firmware updates (especially from MIUI12 to MIUI14+)
• 🔄 Transfer contacts from iPhone or old Android device
• 📱 Reset to factory settings without backup
• ☁️ Connecting a new Google account with a different interface language

⚠️ Warning: If Russian letters are displayed correctly in the Contacts app but turn into Krakozabras in WhatsApp, Telegram or Viber, the problem is not with the phone, but with the settings of a particular messenger.

Method 1: Change the system language and regional settings

The easiest solution is to check that the phone has Russian and Russia/Ukraine/Belarus/Kazakhstan, and even if you see a menu in Russian, the regional settings can remain “Chinese” or “American,” which breaks the encoding of contacts.

Instructions:

1. Open Settings → Additional → Language and Region.
2. In the Language section, select Russian (not just Russian!).
3. In the Region section, identify Russia (or another Russian-speaking country).
4. Reboot your phone (power button → Reboot).

If the problem remains after the reboot:

• 🔄 Try to switch from a region to Ukraine or Kazakhstan, and sometimes it works better.
• 📱 Make sure that the settings of the Google account (in the web version) also indicate Russian.

Method 2: Clearing the cache and data of the Contacts application

If the language change didn’t help, the cause could lie in a damaged cache of the Contacts or Google Contacts app. Clearing the cache won’t delete your contacts, but it will reset temporary files that could cause the encoding to fail.

How to clear the cache:

1. Go to Settings → Applications → Application Management.
2. Find the Contacts (or Contacts) app.
3. Select Warehouse. → Clear the cache.
4. Repeat the Google Contacts app.
5. Reboot the phone.

⚠️ Warning: Don't click Clear Data - this will delete all local contacts! If you sync with a Google account, the data will recover after the reboot, but it's better to back up in advance (see Contact Export section).

If cleaning the cache didn’t help, try updating the Contacts app via Google Play:

• 🔍 Open the Play Store and find Xiaomi Contacts.
• 🔄 Press Update (if available).
• 📥 If no updates are available, delete the updates (Settings → of the App → Contacts → ⋮ → Remove the updates).

Method 3: Sync with Google account (solution for Krakozyabrs)

If Russian letters are displayed as????? or Ðавен, the fault is when the incorrect encoding is synchronized with a Google account.

Step-by-step:

1. Open Settings → Accounts and Sync → Google.
2. Select your account and turn off Contact Sync (move the slider).
3. Wait 1-2 minutes and turn on the sync again.
4. Open the Contacts app and wait for the update to complete (the sync icon at the top of the screen).

If the contacts are still displayed incorrectly:

• 🌐 Go to contacts.google.com from your computer.
• 🔍 Check if the Russian letters are displayed correctly in the web version. If not, the problem is on the Google side (see the section "What to do if a malfunction in a Google account").
• 📤 Export contacts to VCF (on site: More → Export), then import them back to your phone.

Method 4: Manual editing of contacts (for individual records)

If the problem affects only a few contacts, it’s easier to manually edit them:

1. Open the Contacts app and find a problem contact.
2. Click on it → Edit.
3. Remove the distorted characters and enter the name/surname again in Russian.
4. Save the changes.

If you see Cracosabra instead of Cyrillic:

• 📱 Try entering the data in English, saving, then editing again and entering the Russian letters.
• 🔄 Switch the keyboard to Gboard or SwiftKey (sometimes the standard Xiaomi keyboard gets buggy with encoding).

A critical nuance: if a contact syncs with Google, after manual editing on the phone, the changes may “get lost” again the next update, in which case, turn off sync for that contact (in the web version of Google Contacts: highlight the contact → More → Delete from the account, then add it again manually).

Method 5: Export and import contacts (radical solution)

If none of these methods work, you have to completely reset your contact database and import it from the backup, which is guaranteed to fix the encoding problem, but you have to be careful.

Instructions:

1. Export contacts: Open Contacts → ⋮ → Contact Management → Import/Export → Export to storage. Select All contacts and save contacts.vcf file to phone memory.
2. Delete all contacts: Go to Settings → Apps → Contacts → Storage → Clear Data. Confirm Deletion (this erases only local contacts synced with Google will recover later).
3. Import backup: Open Contacts → ⋮ → Contact Management → Import/Export → Import from storage. Select contacts.vcf and confirm the import.

💡

If you have duplicated contacts after import, use the “Connect” function in the Google Contacts app (on contacts.google.com: Duplicates → Combine).

Method 6: Verification of the encoding of the VCF file (for advanced)

If you import contacts from a.vcf file (for example, after transferring from an iPhone or an old phone), the problem may be the file's incorrect encoding. By default, the VCF should be in UTF-8 encoding, but some programs save it to Windows-1251 or KOI8-R, which leads to cranks.

How to check and correct the encoding:

1. Copy the contacts.vcf file to your computer.
2. Open it in Notepad or Notepad++.
3. In Notepad++, see the current encoding in the Encoding menu. If it's not UTF-8, convert the file: Encoding → Convert to UTF-8 (without BOM)
4. Save the file and import it back to your phone.

If you don’t have access to your computer, use mobile apps to convert encoding, such as:

• 📱 Encoding Detector (determines current encoding)
• 🔄 Text Editor (allows you to save a file to UTF-8)

⚠️ Warning: Never edit a VCF- file in a standard Windows Notepad — it automatically saves the file in encoding ANSI, which is guaranteed to break the Cyrillic alphabet. Use Notepad++, VS Code or specialized editors.

Frequent Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Many users are making the problem of Russian letters worse by doing the wrong thing.

• 🚫 Delete your Google account without first exporting your contacts, and you lose all synchronized data.
• 🚫 Reset the phone to factory settings without backup — the problem may return after recovering from the backup.
• 🚫 Use third-party cache cleaner applications (such as Clean Master) – they often delete important system files.
• 🚫 Edit system files (e.g. contacts.db) without root rights – this can cause the phone to break down.

Here’s what you should do in advance to avoid problems in the future:

• ☁️ Export contacts to VCF file regularly (every 1-2 months).
• 🔄 Check your region settings after each major update MIUI.
• 📱 Use Google Contacts instead of the standard Xiaomi app — it is less likely to glitch with the encoding.

💡

If the problem with Russian letters arose after the update MIUI, first try to roll back to the previous firmware version (via Settings → About Phone → System Update → ⋮ → Select the service pack).

FAQ: Answers to Frequent Questions