OK, there is a friend-list of all Russian users, sooner or later you'll run into it. Too many of them, though. Your way is better.

Russian keyboard installation is easy. If you ever need it - use smth like
www.yandex.ru -> search for "Русская фонетическая клавиатура"
(to install Russian standard typewirter keyboard you don't need even that - it's all in MS Windows - see http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PaulGor/kbd_eng.htm).

:-)