Magento Translation

Hope you are doing well,

As i have gone through your question that you want to translate your websites front end in Russian if user has selected the language Russian.

For this you are required to work out the translate.csv files which will be available in your theme Package.

Example : app/design/frontend/default/SecuareWeb/locale/de_DE

In the locale folder you will find the folder for Russian language open that folder and you will find the file where you are required to add the required translation text in it.

How to add translation text in translate.csv file is given below.

Example: "This is the demo of translation in Russian","Это демо-трансляции на русском языке"

And one thing i would like add is that make sure your front end .phtml files must contain the text in $this->__("Example");. If you have added all the text like this then only then it will allow you for translation other wise it will not translate a text.

Hope this might be use full to you !!!

Waiting for your valuable comments in regards to your Question !!!

There are different ways to achieve translation in Magento so you can find multiple directory containing static csv files and also a database table. All the modes have same structure: key/value. For example: "String to translate","String translated".

Inline Translation (database table: core_translate):
following best practices in Magento, you should use inline-translation aka database saved translation in rare cases. It is harder to mantain and can be buggy. It has first precedence, so any translation you do via inline translation will override the other 'modes'.

Theme level Translation (file in app/design/frontend/your_package/your_theme/ru_RU/translate.csv):
you can place any string to be translated in the translate.csv. It has second precedence.

Locale translation (file in app/locale/ru_RU/Module_Name.csv):
the suggested way to do translation as it will keep translation separated by each module and is easier to maintain. For example: Mage_Catalog.csv etc. Each module in Magento can specify its csv file containing translation and sometimes the same string has different modules trying to translate, so if your translation does not work check between multiple file by a quick editor search. It will be overridden by the two above modes.

Note:
Magento will load all the csv files and build up a giant tree and caches it. So before scratching your head because the string is not translated as you wished in the frontend:
1. clean the cache.
2. check for any same key string which comes after your translated string. For example: in the same csv Line 100 will override Line 1 if the key string are the same.
3. check for any same key string in the mode which has higher precedence. For example: inline translation will override any csv based translated string.

It may be easier for you to go to the admin backend System -> Configuration -> Developer and switch "Translate Inline" "Enabled for Frontend" to "Yes".

Then, refresh the frontend and you can change the translation directly at your web browser. The translation is saved in the database table core_translate just for the case you want to do it in a test environment and copy the translation later on to the production.

Take care that without client restrictions (System -> Configuration -> Developer) everyone will see the translation options.

btw. You may need to clear the cache and refresh the webpage in order to see your changes.