What is GOST 7.79-2000?

GOST 7.79-2000 is the Russian and inter-state standard for romanizing Cyrillic. It defines two systems: System A uses diacritics, while System B uses only basic Latin letters and digraphs. This tool uses System B, which is the version used for ASCII-safe transliteration.

Why does Russian ж become zh and not ž?

System B avoids diacritics entirely so it works in plain ASCII. It encodes single Cyrillic letters that have no Latin equivalent as digraphs: ж=zh, ч=ch, ш=sh, щ=shh, and so on.

Is the transliteration reversible?

GOST System B is designed to be reversible. Multi-character sequences such as shh and zh are matched longest-first when converting back, so most text round-trips cleanly between Cyrillic and Latin.

Does it handle uppercase letters?

Yes. Capital Cyrillic letters map to capitalised Latin output and the casing is preserved on the way back, so sentence capitalisation and proper nouns survive the conversion.

No. The conversion uses a local lookup table in your browser, so nothing is sent to a server.

What is the Russian ↔ Latin Transliterator (GOST)?

Free GOST 7.79-2000 transliterator — convert Russian Cyrillic to Latin and back using the official System B scheme, instantly in your browser. No upload. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

Russian ↔ Latin Transliterator (GOST)

Name: Russian ↔ Latin Transliterator (GOST)
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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The Russian ↔ Latin transliterator romanizes Cyrillic text using GOST 7.79-2000 System B, the official ASCII-only scheme used across Russia and other CIS states for documents, databases and identifiers. It maps every Russian Cyrillic letter to plain Latin characters — using digraphs where no single Latin letter exists — and converts back the other way.

How it works

GOST 7.79-2000 defines two systems. System A relies on diacritic marks (ž, č, š); System B, used here, keeps everything in 7-bit ASCII by using letter combinations. The tool stores the full Cyrillic→Latin table and applies it character by character. Each Cyrillic letter is replaced by its Latin equivalent: б→b, в→v, ж→zh, х→x, ц→cz/c, ч→ch, ш→sh, щ→shh, ы→y', э→e', ю→yu, я→ya. The hard and soft signs map to '' and '.

Converting Latin back to Cyrillic matches the longest digraph first — shh is tried before sh, which is tried before s — so the reverse stays unambiguous. Characters with no mapping (Latin punctuation, digits, spaces) pass through unchanged.

Example

The word “Россия” (Russia) transliterates to Rossiya. “Хорошо” (good) becomes Xorosho, and “Щука” (pike) becomes Shhuka. Converting Moskva back yields Москва.

Complete letter mapping reference

Cyrillic	GOST System B	Cyrillic	GOST System B
А а	A a	Р р	R r
Б б	B b	С с	S s
В в	V v	Т т	T t
Г г	G g	У у	U u
Д д	D d	Ф ф	F f
Е е	E e	Х х	X x
Ё ё	Yo yo	Ц ц	Cz cz / C c
Ж ж	Zh zh	Ч ч	Ch ch
З з	Z z	Ш ш	Sh sh
И и	I i	Щ щ	Shh shh
Й й	J j	Ъ ъ	`''`
К к	K k	Ы ы	Y’ y’
Л л	L l	Ь ь	’
М м	M m	Э э	E’ e’
Н н	N n	Ю ю	Yu yu
О о	O o	Я я	Ya ya
П п	P p

When to use this standard

GOST 7.79-2000 System B is the right choice when you need ASCII-safe, reversible transliteration — for example:

Library cataloguing: GOST is the standard for Cyrillic entries in international catalogues.
Database identifiers and filenames: Latin-only environments need a lossless Cyrillic encoding.
Data interchange: Exchanging Russian text in systems that cannot handle Unicode.

If you need names for travel documents, those use a different scheme (ICAO/GOST R 52535 for passports), not GOST 7.79-2000. For casual romanization or readability for English speakers, many people prefer informal schemes where х = kh and ш = sh rather than x and sh. System B’s choices like х → x look unusual but are unambiguous for round-tripping.

Notes

System B preserves a clean round trip at the cost of looking less natural than passport-style romanization. Everything runs locally in your browser; your text is never uploaded.