diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 0586eb6a201..b79627d904a 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -65,8 +65,8 @@ Release 0.21.0 - Unreleased
    HBASE-1831  Scanning API must be reworked to allow for fully functional
                Filters client-side
    HBASE-1890  hbase-1506 where assignment is done at regionserver doesn't
-                work
-   HBASE-1889 ClassNotFoundException on trunk for REST
+               work
+   HBASE-1889  ClassNotFoundException on trunk for REST
    HBASE-1905  Remove unused config. hbase.hstore.blockCache.blockSize
    HBASE-1906  FilterList of prefix and columnvalue not working properly with
                deletes and multiple values
@@ -150,6 +150,7 @@ Release 0.21.0 - Unreleased
                (Scott Wang via Andrew Purtell)
    HBASE-2068  MetricsRate is missing "registry" parameter
                (Lars George and Gary Helmling via Stack)
+   HBASE-2093  [stargate] RowSpec parse bug
 
   IMPROVEMENTS
    HBASE-1760  Cleanup TODOs in HTable
diff --git a/src/contrib/stargate/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/RowResource.java b/src/contrib/stargate/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/RowResource.java
index ddda83e0565..32a0a421291 100644
--- a/src/contrib/stargate/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/RowResource.java
+++ b/src/contrib/stargate/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/RowResource.java
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
 package org.apache.hadoop.hbase.stargate;
 
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.net.URLDecoder;
 import java.util.List;
 
 import javax.ws.rs.Consumes;
@@ -60,7 +61,8 @@ public class RowResource implements Constants {
   public RowResource(String table, String rowspec, String versions)
       throws IOException {
     this.table = table;
-    this.rowspec = new RowSpec(rowspec);
+    this.rowspec = new RowSpec(URLDecoder.decode(rowspec,
+      HConstants.UTF8_ENCODING));
     if (versions != null) {
       this.rowspec.setMaxVersions(Integer.valueOf(versions));
     }
@@ -143,7 +145,8 @@ public class RowResource implements Constants {
     try {
       table = pool.getTable(this.table);
       for (RowModel row: model.getRows()) {
-        Put put = new Put(row.getKey());
+        byte[] key = row.getKey();
+        Put put = new Put(key);
         for (CellModel cell: row.getCells()) {
           byte [][] parts = KeyValue.parseColumn(cell.getColumn());
           if(parts.length == 1) {
diff --git a/src/contrib/stargate/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/package.html b/src/contrib/stargate/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/package.html
index 306966a9180..d88521dcb11 100755
--- a/src/contrib/stargate/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/package.html
+++ b/src/contrib/stargate/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/package.html
@@ -277,7 +277,26 @@ scheme://user:pass@example.net:8080/path/to/file;type=foo?name=val#frag
 Stargate exposes HBase tables, rows, cells, and metadata as URL specified
 resources.
 <p>
-
+<b>NOTE:</b> The characters <tt>/</tt>, <tt>:</tt>, and <tt>,</tt> are reserved
+within row keys, column names, and column qualifiers. Clients must escape them
+somehow, perhaps by encoding them as hex escapes or by using www-url-encoding. For
+example, the key:
+<p>
+<pre>
+    http://www.google.com/
+</pre>
+<p>
+should first be encoded as:
+<p>
+<pre>
+    http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
+</pre>
+<p>
+to produce a path like:
+<pre>
+    /SomeTable/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F/someColumn:qualifier
+</pre>
+<p>
 <h3>Addressing for cell or row query (GET)</h3>
 <p>
 <pre>
diff --git a/src/contrib/stargate/src/test/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/TestRowResource.java b/src/contrib/stargate/src/test/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/TestRowResource.java
index 52736ec61c9..00f24d6f87a 100644
--- a/src/contrib/stargate/src/test/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/TestRowResource.java
+++ b/src/contrib/stargate/src/test/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/stargate/TestRowResource.java
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ package org.apache.hadoop.hbase.stargate;
 import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.StringWriter;
+import java.net.URLEncoder;
 
 import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;
 import javax.xml.bind.JAXBException;
@@ -31,6 +32,7 @@ import javax.xml.bind.Unmarshaller;
 
 import org.apache.commons.httpclient.Header;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.HColumnDescriptor;
+import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.HConstants;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.HTableDescriptor;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.KeyValue;
 import org.apache.hadoop.hbase.client.HBaseAdmin;
@@ -301,6 +303,18 @@ public class TestRowResource extends MiniClusterTestCase {
     assertEquals(response.getCode(), 200);
   }
 
+  public void testURLEncodedKey() throws IOException, JAXBException {
+    String encodedKey = URLEncoder.encode("http://www.google.com/", 
+      HConstants.UTF8_ENCODING);
+    Response response;
+    response = putValueXML(TABLE, encodedKey, COLUMN_1, VALUE_1);
+    assertEquals(response.getCode(), 200);
+    response = putValuePB(TABLE, encodedKey, COLUMN_2, VALUE_2);
+    assertEquals(response.getCode(), 200);
+    checkValuePB(TABLE, encodedKey, COLUMN_1, VALUE_1);
+    checkValueXML(TABLE, encodedKey, COLUMN_2, VALUE_2);
+  }
+
   public void testMultiCellGetPutXML() throws IOException, JAXBException {
     String path = "/" + TABLE + "/fakerow";  // deliberate nonexistent row