diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 4a0548a98f..f57b649bc7 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -10,8 +10,9 @@ Merged from 2.0:
  * Correctly delete scheduled range xfers (CASSANDRA-7143)
  * Make batchlog replica selection rack-aware (CASSANDRA-6551)
  * Suggest CTRL-C or semicolon after three blank lines in cqlsh (CASSANDRA-7142)
- * return all cpu values from BackgroundActivityMonitor.readAndCompute (CASSANDRA-7183)
+ * return all cpu values from BackgroundActivityMonitor.readAndCompute (CASSANDRA-7183)  
  * reduce garbage creation in calculatePendingRanges (CASSANDRA-7191)
+ * fix c* launch issues on Russian os's due to output of linux 'free' cmd (CASSANDRA-6162)
 Merged from 1.2:
  * Add Cloudstack snitch (CASSANDRA-7147)
  * Update system.peers correctly when relocating tokens (CASSANDRA-7126)
diff --git a/conf/cassandra-env.sh b/conf/cassandra-env.sh
index 820f1600e3..eb0553b61b 100644
--- a/conf/cassandra-env.sh
+++ b/conf/cassandra-env.sh
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ calculate_heap_sizes()
 {
     case "`uname`" in
         Linux)
-            system_memory_in_mb=`free -m | awk '/Mem:/ {print $2}'`
+            system_memory_in_mb=`free -m | awk '/:/ {print $2;exit}'`
             system_cpu_cores=`egrep -c 'processor([[:space:]]+):.*' /proc/cpuinfo`
         ;;
         FreeBSD)