The question is closed. Everything was decided in one line:
header ('Content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8'); The fact is that there are no "cracks" on the page, but there is a mess in the sql table. Not just question marks or the like, but real kryakozyabry. But this applies only to Russian letters.
On sql installed utf8_general_ci.
Of course I tried some other images to change the encoding to utf-8, but to no avail. Help me please