none roman alphabet mysql insert problem

i am trying to get none roman caricatures imputed in from a web form to be inserted into a mysql database namely the Cyrillic characters (Russian абвгдеёжзийклмнопрстуфхцчшщъыьэю&#1103?. but for some reason i think php is doing some to the Cyrillic characters.

if i hard code my Cyrillic characters into the php mysql insert i get this in the database when i view it in phpMyAdmin: щъыьэюя
example:

[code=php]$sql = ‘INSERT INTO `xmass` (`message`) VALUES(‘ы ь э ю я’);’;[/code]

but if the text comes from a html form as a post variable i get this in that data base: абвгд

example php:

[code=php]$sql = “INSERT INTO `xmass` (`message`) VALUES ({$_POST[‘message’]})”;[/code]

$_POST[‘message’] would be from the user input from the html from on the prevues page

how do i control what is put into the data base? what is the best thing to put into the database?

and strangely if i manually input into “абвгд” into phpmyadmin “абвгд” is what i see when i view the field in phpmyadmin

i have tried turning абвгд into Cyrillic characters by using the function html_entity_decode but can’t get it to do anything

i am using php 5.2.2 and mysql 5.0.22

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