Playing at being an ancient Rus, I have found the need to create scrolls that appear to be written in Russian, but are in fact in legible English.  Creation of faux Russian calligraphy seems a useful addition
to our Anachronist game.  Though my calligraphic skills and knowledge are modest, I am not aware of anyone else who has tackled this project, hence this proposal.  Besides faking Russian other solutions are possible including writing in Russian with or without accompanying translations.  My objective was to create something readable with a period Slavic look.

        I began with the letterforms found on Kievan period documents Cyrillic and Latin alphabets have a different number of letters and the two systems do not have a one to one correlation.  My strategy began by selecting the most recognizable letter forms for vowels: A, E, I, O, U ignoring that Cyrillic has
several additional letters for vowels.  For the consonants I have allowed the Cyrillic letterforms to substitute for the Latin for a few letters: B, D, G, L and V.  The substitutions give my pages a suitably Russian look, while the manuscript can still be easily deciphered.  Additional substitutions are
possible, such as the Latin R replaced by the Cyrillic P, the S replaced with C, etc.  My experience has
been that too many substitutions result in an illegible page.  I also think that the letters should be phonetically consistent with one or the other of the alphabets we are robbing.

        The actual calligraphy, "the hand", is straightforward.  The Kievan Russian writing is simple and clumsy compared with the sophisticated calligraphy of Western Europe. As best I can tell, the pen was oriented nearly vertically in relation to the page (as opposed to European “hands” which used a sloped orientation).   Pen strokes appear to be linear rather than curved.  The letter O, for example, appears to be made of at least six straight lines.  Calligraphic strokes in this hand are mostly simple, with neither serifs nor bulges at their ends.

        Here are two versions of the alphabet than I have derived:

                                < insert calligraphy>

        I invite other readers to experiment with my alphabet and improve it.  In doing so, keep authentic period manuscripts around to compare the results.  Two easily available sources are "The Rise of Russia" by Robert Wallace (Time Life Books 1967) which has five pages from the Primary Chronicle reproduced in color and "Medieval Russian Ornament in Full Color" by the Moscow Museum of Art and Industry (Dover Publications 1994) mostly initial letters and borders.

         Creating a workable alphabet is only a first step.  Try to consider the tools and materials period scribes worked with.  What kind of margins were used?  Try to understand the underlying design of the pages.  Were guidelines ruled (usually I think yes)?  Notice that there were no upper and lower cases.  Notice that where ornamental initial letters were used.  Examine punctuation and accent marks, etc.

  As you can see, all I have done is a first step.  While recognizing that what we do is not authentic (it is fake!)  I think we can create some objects that truly evokes the ancient Russian world.

     --Peotr Alexeivich (Gregory Frux)