How do I stop certain words turning into Russian

Question

I am using the [utf8]{inputenc} and [russian]{babel} and this allows me to input certain Cyrillic characters easily, but it is also turning certain titles where I have used commands like \tableofcontents, \abstract and \date{\today} into Cyrillic form too. I can, for instance, change the \today command to read \date{01/11/2012}, which does fix the problem, but it still stops me from using certain useful commands, like the ones mentioned above.

I have set out in a table two alphabets: the Latin version, with the corresponding Cyrillic equivalents.

E.g. (Latin on the left, Cyrillic on the right)

A a - A a

B b - Б б

C c - Ц ц

...

Z z - З з

Answer 1

You have to set the main language to English; with only \usepackage[russian]{babel} you're setting the main language to Russian, which is inadequate for typesetting English text.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[T2A,T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[russian,english]{babel}
\usepackage{array}

\usepackage{newunicodechar}
\newunicodechar{ŝ}{\^{s}} % handy shortcut

\begin{document}
\author{Danger Fourpence}
\title{The cyrillic alphabet}
\maketitle

\tableofcontents

\section{The alphabet}

This is the Russian alphabet
\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{*{5}{>{\fontencoding{T2A}\selectfont}ll@{\qquad}}>{\fontencoding{T2A}\selectfont}ll}
{Аа} & a & {Бб} & b & {Вв} & v & {Гг} & g & {Дд} & d & {Ее} & e \\
{Ёё} & ë & {Жж} & ž & {Зз} & z & {Ии} & i & {Йй} & j & {Кк} & k \\
{Лл} & l & {Мм} & m & {Нн} & n & {Оо} & o & {Пп} & p & {Рр} & r \\
{Сс} & s & {Тт} & t & {Уу} & u & {Фф} & f & {Хх} & h & {Цц} & c \\
{Чч} & č & {Шш} & š & {Щщ} & ŝ & {Ъъ} & $''$ & {Ыы} & y & {Ьь} & $'$ \\
{Ээ} & è & {Юю} & û & {Яя} & â 
\end{tabular}
\end{center}
\end{document}

For small excerpts in Russian, use \foreignlanguage{russian}{Москва} or the otherlanguage* environment for paragraphs in Russian.