Importing cyrillic text to illustrator via xml variable

I'm working on a a little project that takes information from sql through php and saves into xml files which are then imported into illustrator.

The problem is that when using Cyrillic text in the xml file it does not appear once imported into illustrator just a blank space.

below is a simple one variable xml file I have been using to try to crack the problem.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 20001102//EN"    "http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-SVG-20001102/DTD/svg-20001102.dtd" [
    <!ENTITY ns_graphs "http://ns.adobe.com/Graphs/1.0/">
    <!ENTITY ns_vars "http://ns.adobe.com/Variables/1.0/">
    <!ENTITY ns_imrep "http://ns.adobe.com/ImageReplacement/1.0/">
    <!ENTITY ns_custom "http://ns.adobe.com/GenericCustomNamespace/1.0/">
    <!ENTITY ns_flows "http://ns.adobe.com/Flows/1.0/">
<!ENTITY ns_extend "http://ns.adobe.com/Extensibility/1.0/">
]>
<svg>
<variableSets  xmlns="&ns_vars;">
    <variableSet  varSetName="binding1" locked="none">
        <variables>
            <variable  category="&ns_flows;" varName="Variable1" trait="textcontent"></variable>
        </variables>
        <v:sampleDataSets  xm开发者_JAVA百科lns:v="&ns_vars;" xmlns="&ns_custom;">
            <v:sampleDataSet  dataSetName="Data Set 1">
                <Variable1>
                    <p>Пена Для Ванн</p>
                </Variable1>
            </v:sampleDataSet>
        </v:sampleDataSets>
    </variableSet>
</variableSets>
</svg>

any help would be greatly appreciated, this has been holding the project up for days now!

For normal XML, specify the language using an xml:lang attribute:

<p xml:lang="ru">Пена Для Ванн</p>

I am assuming Russian, but you can look at the specs to find the correct language. Also maybe read this doc for help with this problem.

But also make sure that the font used to display the text within Illustrator shows Cyrillic correctly.

If none of that works, try putting it in CDATA tags as well.

I have had a problem with importing XML with links in CS5. Solved by updating the Illustrator. Try to update yours.