Why does the name in a translation of a public document from Russian contain such strange characters?
As a general rule, proper names of persons in translations of public documents from Russian are transliterated in accordance with ISO 9:1995, that is, each letter of the Cyrillic characters is replaced by the Latin character defined by the standard in order to ensure that any back-transliteration into Russian will be unambiguous. Some letters (those representing sibilants, for example) are marked by diacritics for this purpose. If you need the spelling of a name in a translation of a public document to be different from the one according to the standard referred to above, you will have to provide adequate documentary evidence. For example, a person’s first name and surname are entered in the passport of the Russian Federation in a transcribed spelling. If the latter is to be used in a certified translation, send me a certified copy of the passport concerned, which I will return to you along with the completed translation. The name concerned will then appear in the translation precisely
