как заставить xterm понимать русский в условиях побидившей ru_RU.UTF8

XTerm*VT100.utf8Fonts.font: terminus-14

Обрати внимание, что XTerm с большой буквы и ресурс не font.

xterm*font: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-*-130-*-*-*-*-iso10646-1

В Fedora 9 работает.

юзать rxvt-unicode

В Gentoo с русским всё ок «из коробки».

*fontMenu.Label:  VT Fonts
*fontMenu*fontdefault*Label:    Default
*fontMenu*font1*Label:  Unreadable
*VT100.font1:       nil2
*IconFont:      nil2
*fontMenu*font2*Label:  Tiny
*VT100.font2:       5x7
*fontMenu*font3*Label:  Small
*VT100.font3:       6x10
*fontMenu*font4*Label:  Medium
*VT100.font4:       7x13
*fontMenu*font5*Label:  Large
*VT100.font5:       9x15
*fontMenu*font6*Label:  Huge
*VT100.font6:       10x20
*fontMenu*fontescape*Label: Escape Sequence
*fontMenu*fontsel*Label:    Selection
!fontescape and fontsel overridden by application
*fontMenu*font-linedrawing*Label: Line-Drawing Characters
*fontMenu*font-doublesize*Label: Doublesized Characters
*fontMenu*font-loadable*Label:  VT220 Soft Fonts
*fontMenu*render-font*Label:    TrueType Fonts
*fontMenu*utf8-mode*Label:  UTF-8

*VT100.utf8Fonts.font2: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--8-80-75-75-c-50-iso10646-1
*VT100.utf8Fonts.font:  -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
*VT100.utf8Fonts.font3: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-130-75-75-c-70-iso10646-1
*VT100.utf8Fonts.font4: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-c-80-iso10646-1
*VT100.utf8Fonts.font5: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--18-120-100-100-c-90-iso10646-1
*VT100.utf8Fonts.font6: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-200-75-75-c-100-iso10646-1