Keyboard for Cryillic Alphabet

[Azryael]

I'm in the process of learning Russian (something I've always wanted to do) and have been relying on my phone with a Cyrillic keyboard option to communicate with some friends who are helping me along the way. This obviously isn't ideal, and using online boards and then copying and pasting the text is very cumbersome.

I'm looking for something that's 61-keys, to use as a secondary board to type in Cyrillic while also being able to use it for travel. I know WASD has what I'm looking for, but I'm curious if there is a hardware feature on the board to switch alphabets, or if it's something I have to select in the OS on the fly and and simply reference the letters on the board for what I want. I know Windows allows you to set multiple "input languages", but I've never experimented with this. If this is more or less the way to do it, then it seems foregoing a new board and simply getting some new keycaps with both alphabets (I'm currently using a Corsair RGB Strafe Mk. 2).

However, I WOULD like to build my own board, and one thing that gives me pause about WASD is the lack of backlighting; I understand they aren't a fan of unicorn vomit, but it's still nice to have backlit keys.

Open to any and all suggestions!

[AspiringMechKeebFan]

Making OS handle keyboard layout language _is_ the way to do it. Using anything less than 60% will bring you pain as Russian has more letters than English. For example, I don't think it is possible to fit all letters/characters on one 40% layer.

[Azryael]

I did poke further to discover a key combo to switch input languages, so that's not an issue.

Looking at a 61-key board, it all fits, but I will find myself switching input languages for punctuation. The same seems true of an 87-key or even a full size board. Hmm.

[AspiringMechKeebFan]

What do you mean by that?

Sent from my Redmi K20 Pro using Tapatalk

[Azryael]

If you look at the period and comma keys, which are also the keys for "B" and "U", I'd imagine I'd have to either hold a function key or switch input profiles.

[AspiringMechKeebFan]

The images you've found do a pretty bad job on showing which character belong to which layout. Attached image should be your reference to a Russian layout. Any key that has both grey and red represents keyboard layout with grey being standard English and red being standard Russian. If key doesn't have a red character, then it is the same in both standard English and standard Russian layout (such as exclamation mark or regular braces). However, depending on the keyboard layout (my image is ANSI), layout can look a little bit different with |\ key being shifted into a different position.

To answer your question, you can see that there is period (regular key press) and comma (shift + key press) are right of Ю character.