use locale;
use POSIX qw (locale_h);
....
setlocale(LC_CTYPE, 'Russian_Russia.20866') or die "Can't set locale: $!";
        foreach $name (sort keys %authors) {
                ($letter) = ($name =~ /^(.)/);
                $letter = uc $letter;
                if ($letter ne $last_letter)
                {
                      print IND "<h2>$letter</h2>\n";
                        $last_letter = $letter;
                }
                print IND qq{<a href="$authors{$name}[1]\\index.html">$authors{$name}[0]</a><br>\n};
        }