I don't know much about different character sets, but there is also a mysql function called UNIX_TIMESTAMP() which converts a date string to a timestamp, and maybe if your mysql server is set for Russian dates, it will know how to do the conversion.
Here's a page that shows the date functions available:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/..._from-unixtime
and here's a page that talks about setting your server date/time language:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/...e-support.html