mysql connector/net and cyrillics

im writing this application that stores client data in mysql 4.0.18 and i see that any data in cyrillics or unicode is stored as ??????.
wtf??
i search and search the web for solution and found .... nothing !?!?
i remembered i had a similar problem once with software for another client, and at that time a had given up and used MySQL ODBC instead.
this time i decided to continue the search and found this post (http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=10870) and a little bit somewhere here.
so the solution is to add charset=utf8 to your connection string.
why is it so hard to find the solution to a problem that should be common ? or, hmm, ok - maybe i really should've read the mysql manual properly...