use utf8;
binmode STDOUT, ':encoding(UTF-8)';
use Data::Dumper;
use Data::Dump qw/pp/;
my $pv = {'&#945;&#946;&#947;' => '&#967;&#968;&#950;'}; #<<<proper greek key and value
print pp($pv)."\n";
print Dumper($pv);
print "XX:'".$pv->{'&#945;&#946;&#947;'}."'\n"; # proper greek nicely printed
# madness:
{ "\x{3B1}\x{3B2}\x{3B3}" => "\x{3C7}\x{3C8}\x{3B6}" }
$VAR1 = {
          "\x{3b1}\x{3b2}\x{3b3}" => "\x{3c7}\x{3c8}\x{3b6}"
        };
# nicely printed
XX:'&#967;&#968;&#950;' #<<<< that's proper greek