Steps : export LANG=ru_RU.KOI8-r (locale was set properly) initdb createdb -E WIN tst psql tst < tsearch2.sql psql tst : SET client_encoding to KOI8; create table tst (name text, v tsvector); insert .. update tst set v = to_tsvector(lower(nm)); and i've got capitalized russian text in v (vectors) :( the select * from lower(); isnt working too I've tried Postgres 8.1 and 8.2