Setting text encoding to use with non-Unicode application(s)

[Thanks-a-lot]

How do you change the text encoding for applications that don't use Unicode, e.g. “Western (8859-15)” → “Cyrillic (Windows-1251)”?

I am using Wine 1.0.1 on Debian, no changes.

This is how it works in Windows:
In Windows XP (and probably other editions), advanced language settings allow you to set (globally, not for individual applications) which encoding non-Unicode applications should use to display text. This is for when you have e.g. Arabic or Greek Windows but want a Japanese or Russian application to display properly, i.e. as if run on a Japanese or Russian locale Windows, instead of displaying garbled mojibake. If memory serves me right it sat somewhere like "System settings" > "Language and regional settings" > "Advanced features" > in the lower area of the last tab.

This is what I am looking for in Wine:
I expected to find a similar setting in Wine's configuration GUI but failed to find one, neither as a global setting nor for individual applications, and searching the website's FAQ, Documentation, Wiki and Forum either turned up nothing or did not seem to work.

A setting for individual applications, even if not included in the GUI, would be great for people who want e.g. one application to display Japanese text and, at the same time, another one to display Russian text. Or two programs of the same language, but in different encodings.
Thanks in advance.

(If you think you might have a solution and you want a non-Western program to check if it works, you could unpack and install this lightweight (1.3 MB) Russian game (release information), run it, click through the error messages, and when the main menu is up, choose “Настройка”. If it doesn't work, all text in the upper half (next to checkboxes) will be mojibake, same for the title bar of every window so far, although some text in the program displays fine, e.g. button labels.)

[dimesio]

I am using Wine 1.0.1 on Debian, no changes.

Your Wine version is over 4 years old and no longer supported. You need to upgrade to the latest development release.

Use the LANG environment variable to run apps in a language other than your system default. http://wiki.winehq.org/TestingLanguages

As for the Russian game, I downloaded it and ran it with LANG=ru_RU.UTF-8 in 1.5.21, and the text next to the checkboxes looked like Cyrillic to me. But I don't know Russian, so I really can't say whether or not what I saw was 100% correct. That's something you will have to check yourself in current Wine.