How do I view cp1251 text file in UTF-8 console?

Attempt 1:

$ less subs.srt
"subs.srt" may be a binary file.  See it anyway? 
<C8><F2><E0><EB><FC><FF><ED> ...

Attempt 2:

$ LANG=ru_RU.CP1251 less subs.srt
����� �����, ��� ������.
��� ������� �������������! ...

Workaround:

$ iconv -f cp1251 < subs.srt | less

How do I do it conveniently?