Izhitsa or Izhica (Ѵ, ѵ; italics: Ѵ ѵ; OCS: Ѷжица, Russian: Ижица, Ukrainian: Іжиця) is a letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet and several later alphabets, usually the last in the row. It originates from the Greek letter upsilon (Y, υ) and was used in words and names derived from or via the Greek language, such as кѵрилъ (kürilǔ, "Cyril", from Greek Κύριλλος) or флаѵии (flavii, "Flavius", from Greek Φλάυιος). It represented the sounds or as normal letters и and в, respectively. The Glagolitic alphabet has a corresponding letter with the name izhitsa as well (Ⱛ, ⱛ). Also, izhitsa in its standard form or, most often, in a tailed variant (similar to Latin "y") was part of a digraph оѵ/оу representing the sound . The digraph is known as Cyrillic "uk", and today's Cyrillic letter u originates from its simplified form. The letter's traditional name, izhitsa (ижица), is explained as a diminutive either of the word иго (igo, "yoke"), due to the letter's shape, or of иже (izhe, "which"), the name of the main Cyrillic and Glagolitic letters for the same sound, . The numeral value of Cyrillic izhitsa is 400. Glagolitic izhitsa has no numeral value. Church Slavonic editions printed in Russia use a tailed variant of the letter for the numeral purpose, whereas editions from Serbia or Romania (including books in the Romanian Cyrillic alphabet), as well as early printed books from Ukraine, prefer a basic form of the letter without the tail. Russian In the Russian language, the use of izhitsa became progressively rarer during the 18th and 19th centuries. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was only one word with relatively stable spelling that included the letter izhitsa: мѵро (miro, "myrrh") and its derivatives. In the documents of the spelling reform of 1917–1918, izhitsa is not mentioned at all, although the statement that it was canceled at that time, along with decimal i, yat and fita, is not only widespread, but also reflected in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. In fact, Ѵ fell out of use in the civil alphabet gradually, under the influence not only of the general direction of changes in the spelling of the Russian language, but also of the displacement of words and texts on religious topics from the civil press. At the same time, for example, steam locomotives of the Ѵ series were produced until 1931 and were in operation