That means that your source data is going through two charset conversions before being sent to the browser:

This only forces the client which encoding to use to interpret and display the characters. But the actual problem is that you're already

В любом случае, начните с онлайн-декодера, чтобы понять с какими кодировками достаточно работать.

I know this is an answer to a very old question, but was facing the issue once again. Some old windows machine didnt encoded the text correct before inserting it to the utf8_general_ci collated table.

That is the recommended way when building PHP projects from scratch. While it would probably fix the problem the OP shows, fixing the problem at its root (if possible) is much preferable.

в свой черед вот что я думаю, такие тексты могут расшифровать Профессор Чудинов В. А. как Ïàìÿíèêè íà ìîãèëó âîåííûì â Ìîñêâå и его последователи или ученики.

Áÿëè, áó ñóàë ëàð, áÿëêÿ äÿ éöçäÿ ñÿêñÿíèíè äöøöíäöðìöð. Àììà ÿêñÿð èí ñàíëàðûí âàõòàøûðû þçëÿðèíÿ öíâàíëàäûüû ìèíëÿðëÿ ñóàëëàðäàí áèð íå÷ÿñè äÿ ìÿùç áåëÿäèð. Ìÿí äÿ ñàäÿëþâù êÿíä óøàüû îëäóüóìäàí ÿñë øÿðèí íÿ îëäó üóíó áèëìÿçäèì.

What type of grounding relation best describes the relationship between particles and fields in QFT?

If this is your issue, then usually just altering the table to use UTF-8 is sufficient. If your database doesn't support that, you'll need to recreate the tables. It is good practice to set the encoding of the table when you create it.

Unicode numeric identifiers, like ASCII, are regularly displayed in hexadecimal format for a more concise writing.

Âñ¸ áûëî áóêâàëüíî íà ãðàíè êàòàñòðîôû. Íî ðÿäîì áûëè öâåòû â ãîðøêàõ, è íåîáîææ¸ííûå ñîñíû, è òðóùèåñÿ î íîãè ñîáàêè, è ðåñòîðàí, îòêðûòûé äëÿ óæèíà; è ÷óâñòâîâàëîñü, ÷òî âñå íà óëèöå âçäûõàþò ñ áëàãîäàðíîñòüþ çà òî, ÷òî âñ¸ ýòî ó íèõ åù¸ åñòü. Õîòÿ áû íåíàäîëãî (Äèàíà Ìàðêóì, Äåñÿòûé îñòðîâ).

Часом текст маленький, то поможет онлайн-декодер, а Рано или поздно текст большой — поможет текстовый редактор.

Always specify your encoding in your http headers and make sure this matches your framework's definition of encoding.

Вся дальнейшая творение будет проходить в текстовом редакторе.