%$Lamed
\documentclass{book}

\usepackage{times}

\usepackage[charset=isocyr,english,russian]{mem}

\languageproperties{russian}{rmfamily=omlgc} % UCY encoded omlgc

%\languageproperties{russian}{rmfamily=cmr}   % T2A encoded cmr

\scriptproperties{La}{charset=isolat1}

\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
\setlength{\parskip}{6pt}

\begin{document}

\chapter{Russian}


{
\begin{quote}
\begin{languageset}{english}\small
The way fonts are handled is poor and it must be
improved. For example, here  \verb|\englishtext| does not
always work correctly.

A single script like Cyrillic can have
several font encodings depending on the language:
T2A, T2B, T2C, etc.

We can say
\begin{verbatim}
\scriptproperties{Cy}{rmfamily=omlgc}
\languageproperties{ukrainian}{rmfamily=cmr}
\end{verbatim}

Then omlgc is usen in all Cyrillic languages
except in Ukrainian, where cmr is used instead.

\end{languageset}
\end{quote}}

This document can be typeset with both UCY (Cyrillic Unicode-like
encoding) o standard T2A encoding.

Random letters in the ISO Cyrillic encoding:

{.�.�.�.�.�.�.�.}

������� ������� ������� ������ ������ ���� �����

Now, we activate the transliteration from Latin (more o less ISO, with
caron as h): Dobroe utro, dobryj den', spokojnoj nochi.  Note the soft
sign has the correct case.

\begin{languageset}[charset=isolat1, input=latin]{russian}

% Note. This input=latin is too generic in the sense
% that there are many ways to transliterate Russian.
% Then, one would be allowed to say input=ala/lc or
% input=iso or something similar. 

Dobroe utro, dobryj den', spokojnoj nochi

\MakeUppercase{Dobroe utro, dobryj den', spokojnoj nochi}
\englishtext{(with \verb+\MakeUppercase+)}.

DOBROE UTRO, DOBRYJ DEN', SPOKOJNOJ NOCHI \englishtext{(Uppercased in 
the source)}.

�to

\end{languageset}

What if I was using a Mac encoding. The file does not say
\englishtext{�to}, as above, but \englishtext{�to} (which
you will see correctly on a Mac, of course):
\languageset[charset=macstd, input=latin]{russian}{�to}

\end{document}