Where does ё sort in the Russian alphabet?

In standard Russian dictionary order ё is collated immediately after е and before ж. It is treated as its own letter, not merged with е and not pushed to the end, which is exactly how this tool orders it.

Why not just use the browser default sort?

A naive code-point sort places ё (U+0451) far away from е (U+0435), producing wrong dictionary order. This tool uses an explicit Russian alphabet ranking so the result matches how a Russian dictionary or phone book would order the words.

Is the sort case sensitive?

No. Words are compared case-insensitively so Москва and москва rank together by letter. The original capitalisation of each word is preserved in the output.

How are non-letter characters handled?

Digits, punctuation and spaces sort after all Cyrillic letters, so plain words come first. Comparison runs letter by letter and falls back to length when one word is a prefix of another.

Can I sort large lists?

Yes. The sort runs locally in your browser and handles long word lists quickly. Nothing is uploaded, so it is safe for private or sensitive content.

What is the Russian Alphabetical Sort?

Sort a list of Russian words into correct Cyrillic dictionary order, with ё placed between е and ж exactly as Russian collation requires. Paste a word list and copy the sorted output, processed entirely in your browser. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Russian Alphabetical Sort

Name: Russian Alphabetical Sort
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Sorting Russian words correctly is more than a code-point comparison: the letter ё has to fall between е and ж, which most default sorts get wrong because the Unicode code point for ё (U+0451) places it far away from е (U+0435). This tool applies true Russian dictionary collation to any word list you paste.

How it works

The tool defines the full 33-letter Russian alphabet as an explicit ordered sequence:

а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я

Each letter is assigned a rank from this order, and words are compared character by character using those ranks rather than raw Unicode code points. Because ё is given the rank right after е, it sorts before ж — matching dictionaries, phone books, and library catalogues. Comparison is case-insensitive, and when one word is a prefix of another the shorter word sorts first.

Why ё is a frequent problem

The letter ё presents two separate issues in Russian text processing:

Unicode position: ё (U+0451) sits outside the main Cyrillic block used for а–я (U+0430–U+044F). A naive sort by code point sends all ё-words to the very end of the list, after all я-words.
Optional usage: In everyday Russian writing, ё is commonly replaced with е. The word “ёлка” (New Year tree) frequently appears written as “елка”. A tool sorting a mixed list where some words use ё and some use е may need to decide whether to merge them or keep them separate. This tool treats ё and е as distinct letters that differ at their position in the alphabet, following formal dictionary practice.

Worked example

The following six words in random order — ёлка, ежевика, ель, ёж, едок, ёрш — sort correctly to:

едок
ежевика
ель
ёж
ёлка
ёрш

All е-words appear first (е comes before ё in the alphabet), then ё-words follow as a block. If the same list were sorted by Unicode code point, all three ё-words would fall after я, producing completely wrong order.

When to use this

This tool is useful for any task requiring alphabetically-ordered Russian text: glossaries, index generation, dropdown menu options, contact lists, dictionary apps, or reference documents. When building lists in spreadsheet tools or programming with default sort functions, the ё problem surfaces silently — the result looks almost right but places ё-words in the wrong position. Paste through this tool to catch it before it reaches users.