MySQL encoding problem

This problem is very common and solution for it can be found very easily. But when I faced it, it was not so easy to find appropriate solution for me. So, I have MySQL db. I saved there data (for instance, strings) written in Russian (or Ukrainian). But when I wanted to view data (through MySQL console or browser in my web application) there were only ???????? (question marks). I tested all posted solutions in Internet (to change my.ini, to change sql script), but none helped. My founded solution was simply to set char set while creating db. For example :
CREATE DATABASE DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
USE ;
SET NAMES utf8;