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The main problem here is that I don't think anyone among the editorship understands Russian (I can speak German and Spanish, I presume H.G. speaks Dutch, and Jean‐Louis, while not presently an editor, would be able to help with French, but as far as I'm aware that's about it), so it would be difficult to be confident in the quality of such a translation (though I suppose there are other Russian speakers on this forum, who might be better placed to help in this regard?).

That said, in principle I'm all for having more Russian‐language (or any other non‐English) pages, so if we can find a way to make this work by all means :‌)

We can rely on browser translations to make sure the translation is on target. To do this, we should add a LANG attribute to some major element, such as HTML or BODY. As a test, I added LANG="nl" to some Dutch pages and was able to get an English translation. While the translations we get may be imperfect, we can at least use them to make sure that the page is explaining the rules of the game. Actually, as a further test, I tried to get a translation of a Dutch page without this, and it still worked. As one more test, I was able to get an English translation of our Russian Chess Rules page. So, even if none of us speak Russian, we may be able to check the translations.

@BnEm yes I could help with French, also with Spanish and Italian or Esperanto, but I have realized that it is not easy to do such a thing with chess variants. The problem of names of the piece, which is already an issue in English, may become a problem with other languages.

Just to illustrate an Alfil is a Bishop in Spanish, a Cavalier a Knight in French. The Queen in Russian is a Boat and the Bishop is an Elephant. The Bishop is a Fool in French. Of course, things are getting even weirder with other names of characters and animals. If I had to translate Bigorra with its more than 30 different pieces, I may come to some difficulties.

Just to illustrate an Alfil is a Bishop in Spanish, a Cavalier a Knight in French. The Queen in Russian is a Boat and the Bishop is an Elephant. The Bishop is a Fool in French.

Incorrect, Queen is Ferz while Rook is a Boat. Хрен редьки не слаще, to be said)

The problem of names of the piece, which is already an issue in English, may become a problem with other languages. <…> Of course, things are getting even weirder with other names of characters and animals. If I had to translate Bigorra with its more than 30 different pieces, I may come to some difficulties.

I’m creative, so I’ll find the right way)

Well, being creative is not the main requirement, and might actually backfire. There surely must already exist publications in these other languages about chess variants, which name many of the elementary pieces. It would be important to conform to these existing naming schemes, rather than create entirely new ones.

@Lev: yes, sorry I wrote too fast. Yes Queen is Ferz and Rook is Boat (ladya). I knew that of course as you imagine. It changes nothing on what I was trying to say. On the contrary.

I don't get the point with "Хрен редьки не слаще" even with a translator. I hope this is not disrespectful on me.

I don't get the point with "Хрен редьки не слаще" even with a translator.

Russian proverb: one trouble is not better than another.

Russian proverb: one trouble is not better than another.

Reflected in a contemporary American idiom: It's always something. :)

The problem of names of the piece, which is already an issue in English, may become a problem with other languages

Yeah piece nomenclature would definitely be the hardest part of this; as H.G. notes, there'll be some precedent in whatever exesting literature on CVs there is in a given target language, but that will almost certainly be limited in scope for most languages compared to what we have here (even, say, Die Schwalbe's relatively extensive glossary has some, from a variantist point of view, arguably major omissions). And as you say there's a certain amount of conflicting usage between languages that makes things less than straightforward.

Of course, that cuts both ways; would‐be translators have an opportunity (if they do their research appropriately) to avoid making quite as much of a mess of naming as we have in English :‌) Even if we don't go as far as attempting the likely‐futile task of trying to replicate the likes of Man and Beast in, say, French.

And depending on the pages Lev is interested in translating it may not be much of an issue at all; plenty of games on these pages use only the Orthodox sextet

If I had to translate Bigorra with its more than 30 different pieces, I may come to some difficulties

Might be an interesting exercise in itself, to see how feasible such a task would be. And whilst i don't know the established French names (assuming there are any) for Cardinal/Marshall/Amazon, most of the remaining pieces (with the exception of the Direwolf and maybe the Soldier) ought to be easily translated word‐for‐word. For Russian we might have to pay more attention to the Elephant and Ship (we could always take precedent from English and go with ‘Филь’ for the former at least), and Italian/Spanish/German might want something more distinct from ‘dame’ than ‘duchess’, but these are exceptions really.

And whilst i don't know the established French names (assuming there are any) for Cardinal/Marshall/Amazon

Some English speakers would call the first two Archbishop and Chancellor or Princess and Empress. If he's translating the rules of a game, it would be most appropriate to use the translation of whatever the piece is called in that game, as opposed to how it is more widely known. It would also be appropriate for him to put the original English name in parentheses. And if he knows a common Russian name for a piece, he might add a note about what it is commonly known in Russian as.

I would be interested to know if there is any substantial Russian literature on chess variants or fairy chess. It's possible that this kind of individuality was frowned upon in the Soviet Union and didn't get the same attention it got in the west.

Fr: Cardinal/ Maréchal/Amazone; Loup Garrou/Soldat, yes those are easy. The difficulties in Fr would be that "knight" is translated by "chevalier" in a general context and by "cavalier" (meaning a horse rider) in the context of chess. So a CV having Knight, Cavalier and Chevalier, will be difficult to translate in French. Or a CV having a Tower and a Rook, both being "Tour". A CV having a Lady, would be translated as "Demoiselle", as "Dame" is already the word for Queen. Etc.

Litterature for CV exists in Fr with the pioneer works of Boyer in the 50s (which inspired Parton), then the rich book of Giffard and Bienabé (Guide des échecs), that I recommend even if you are not at ease with Fr. Bienabé wrote a very large section about fairy chess with plenty of information on fairy pieces, from the perspective of the 20th problemists (many were French). And, of course, my own French books on the subject, I should mention.

In Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian I have some literature too were I could find the adopted names for the most used ones.

The difficulties with translating to French are mainly due to French being one of the main sources for Modern English. Because of this, French and English share many words even if we pronounce them differently or give them slightly different meanings. Russian, though, has never been as much of an influence on English, and it uses a different alphabet. So, it's probably not going to have as many clashes over piece names as French has.

The difficulties in Fr would be that "knight" is translated by "chevalier" in a general context and by "cavalier" (meaning a horse rider) in the context of chess. So a CV having Knight, Cavalier and Chevalier, will be difficult to translate in French. Or a CV having a Tower and a Rook, both being "Tour". A CV having a Lady, would be translated as "Demoiselle", as "Dame" is already the word for Queen. Etc.

In general, this is true, yes; my previous comment was referring specifically to Bigorra (and by extension the rest of the games in its family) which doesn't have such conflicts.

The difficulties with translating to French are mainly due to French being one of the main sources for Modern English

I'd say the difficulty is a little subtler: English, due to both its Lingua Franca status and its extensive acquisition of loanwords, simply has a lot of words in certain semantic domains that mean either the same or very similar things. Which is obvious when, as with French, there are actual clashes, but even in Russian I'd be a little surprised (perhaps @Lev can enlighten us?) if it had three different words for Knight/Cavalier/Chevalier.

For comparison, German might get away with that triplet using both ‘Knecht’ and ‘Ritter’, (cognate to ‘Knight’ and ‘Rider’ respectively, and with (I think) slightly different connotations), but even then only because the Chess Knight is unrelatedly named ‘Springer’ — it can thus even spare a word for ‘Horse’ (‘Pferd’ — or even ‘Ross’ if necessary, though that'd be a bit like naming two pieces ‘Horse’ and ‘Steed’ in English). It would have just as much trouble as French with ‘Rook’/‘Tower’ (both ‘Turm’), though.

At some point, creative license would no doubt become necessary.

Some English speakers would call [Cardinal and Marshall] Archbishop and Chancellor or Princess and Empress

And some would call the Amazon Ace or Terror. Yes, English CV nomenclature is a mess.

One might argue that's an accident of history: several people independently reinventing the same pieces under different names before any one convention got established. There's no reason a priori to replicate that in translation (this being the ‘opportunity’ I referred to).