Shcha or Shta (Щ, щ) is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet, representing the consonant /ʃʲ/, /ʃʧ/, /ʃʲʧʲ/ in Russian, and the consonant /ʃt/ in Bulgarian. Originally, this letter was a ligature of sha and te (Ш + Т = Щ), with the descender in the middle of the sha, and is descended from the Glagolitic letter Shta:

This letter is the most troublesome for romanization. In linguistics, it is transliterated as šč (with háčeks). In English, it is typically transcribed shch, but in German it requires seven letters: schtsch. This gave rise to a popular joke about a Russian tsarina of German origin, that she managed to make eight spelling mistakes in the two-letter word Щи (Shchi, a traditional Russian soup). Strangely enough, the Russian щи sounds almost exactly like the English she.