Good Day, All!

Hibernate version:
3.0.5

Mapping documents:
no mappings - this is only a test

hibernate.properties:
hibernate.dialect org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle9Dialect
hibernate.connection.driver_class oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver
hibernate.connection.username cesartest
hibernate.connection.password cesar
hibernate.connection.url jdbc:oracle:thin:@oradev:10521:D

Full Code:
Configuration cfg = new Configuration();
SessionFactory sf = cfg.buildSessionFactory(); //exception

Full stack trace of any exception that occurs:
11:09:42,216 INFO Environment:464 - Hibernate 3.0.5
11:09:42,232 INFO Environment:482 - loaded properties from resource hibernate.properties: {hibernate.connection.username=cesartest, hibernate.connection.password=****, hibernate.cglib.use_reflection_optimizer=true, hibernate.dialect=org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle9Dialect, hibernate.connection.url=jdbc:oracle:thin:@oradev:10521:D, hibernate.connection.driver_class=oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver}
11:09:42,247 INFO Environment:510 - using CGLIB reflection optimizer
11:09:42,247 INFO Environment:540 - using JDK 1.4 java.sql.Timestamp handling
11:09:45,244 INFO Configuration:875 - processing extends queue
11:09:45,244 INFO Configuration:879 - processing collection mappings
11:09:45,260 INFO Configuration:888 - processing association property references
11:09:45,260 INFO Configuration:917 - processing foreign key constraints
11:09:45,322 INFO DriverManagerConnectionProvider:41 - Using Hibernate built-in connection pool (not for production use!)
11:09:45,322 INFO DriverManagerConnectionProvider:42 - Hibernate connection pool size: 20
11:09:45,338 INFO DriverManagerConnectionProvider:45 - autocommit mode: false
11:09:46,056 INFO DriverManagerConnectionProvider:80 - using driver: oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver at URL: jdbc:oracle:thin:@oradev:10521:D
11:09:46,071 INFO DriverManagerConnectionProvider:86 - connection properties: {user=cesartest, password=****}
11:09:51,831 WARN SettingsFactory:103 - Could not obtain connection metadata
java.sql.SQLException: ORA-00604: error occurred at recursive SQL level 1
ORA-12705: invalid or unknown NLS parameter value specified

at oracle.jdbc.driver.DatabaseError.throwSqlException(DatabaseError.java:125)
at oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CTTIoer.processError(T4CTTIoer.java:305)
at oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CTTIoer.processError(T4CTTIoer.java:272)
at oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CTTIoauthenticate.receiveOauth(T4CTTIoauthenticate.java:648)
at oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CConnection.logon(T4CConnection.java:308)
at oracle.jdbc.driver.PhysicalConnection.<init>(PhysicalConnection.java:348)
at oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CConnection.<init>(T4CConnection.java:151)
at oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CDriverExtension.getConnection(T4CDriverExtension.java:32)
at oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver.connect(OracleDriver.java:563)
at java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(DriverManager.java:512)
at java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection(DriverManager.java:140)
at org.hibernate.connection.DriverManagerConnectionProvider.getConnection(DriverManagerConnectionProvider.java:110)
at org.hibernate.cfg.SettingsFactory.buildSettings(SettingsFactory.java:72)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSettings(Configuration.java:1463)
at org.hibernate.cfg.Configuration.buildSessionFactory(Configuration.java:1004)
at testHibernateSpring.Test.main(Test.java:23)
11:09:52,034 INFO Dialect:92 - Using dialect: org.hibernate.dialect.Oracle9Dialect
11:09:52,362 INFO TransactionFactoryFactory:31 - Using default transaction strategy (direct JDBC transactions)
11:09:52,377 INFO TransactionManagerLookupFactory:33 - No TransactionManagerLookup configured (in JTA environment, use of read-write or transactional second-level cache is not recommended)
11:09:52,377 INFO SettingsFactory:125 - Automatic flush during beforeCompletion(): disabled
11:09:52,377 INFO SettingsFactory:129 - Automatic session close at end of transaction: disabled
11:09:52,393 INFO SettingsFactory:144 - Scrollable result sets: disabled
11:09:52,393 INFO SettingsFactory:152 - JDBC3 getGeneratedKeys(): disabled
11:09:52,393 INFO SettingsFactory:160 - Connection release mode: null
11:09:52,408 INFO SettingsFactory:187 - Default batch fetch size: 1
11:09:52,408 INFO SettingsFactory:191 - Generate SQL with comments: disabled
11:09:52,408 INFO SettingsFactory:195 - Order SQL updates by primary key: disabled
11:09:52,408 INFO SettingsFactory:334 - Query translator: org.hibernate.hql.ast.ASTQueryTranslatorFactory
11:09:52,424 INFO ASTQueryTranslatorFactory:21 - Using ASTQueryTranslatorFactory
11:09:52,440 INFO SettingsFactory:203 - Query language substitutions: {}
11:09:52,440 INFO SettingsFactory:209 - Second-level cache: enabled
11:09:52,440 INFO SettingsFactory:213 - Query cache: disabled
11:09:52,440 INFO SettingsFactory:321 - Cache provider: org.hibernate.cache.EhCacheProvider
11:09:52,674 INFO SettingsFactory:228 - Optimize cache for minimal puts: disabled
11:09:52,674 INFO SettingsFactory:237 - Structured second-level cache entries: disabled
11:09:52,721 INFO SettingsFactory:261 - Statistics: disabled
11:09:52,721 INFO SettingsFactory:265 - Deleted entity synthetic identifier rollback: disabled
11:09:52,736 INFO SettingsFactory:279 - Default entity-mode: pojo
11:09:54,266 INFO SessionFactoryImpl:152 - building session factory
11:09:54,313 WARN Configurator:126 - No configuration found. Configuring ehcache from ehcache-failsafe.xml found in the classpath: jar:file:/C:/roman/work/Experiments/Experiments/lib/ehcache.jar!/ehcache-failsafe.xml
11:09:54,687 INFO SessionFactoryObjectFactory:82 - Not binding factory to JNDI, no JNDI name configured
11:09:54,687 INFO SessionFactoryImpl:379 - Checking 0 named queries

Name and version of the database you are using:
Database Oracle 9i
Oracle Driver 10g
Full backward compability is claimed for 10g driver with 9i databases

Comments:
We have to migrate from Oracle Driver 9i to 10g, but the access to 9i databases will be used.
Hibernate 3.0.5 + Oracle Driver 9i works perfectly
Hibernate 3.0.5 + Oracle Driver 10g throws an exception at the SessionFactory creation moment

In Windows (XP) Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Advanced -> Language for non-Unicode programs
thesettings is "Russian"
If switch to "English (Unated States)" - the problem dissapears

Two jars for oracle are included into the project:
ojdbc14.jar - jar, containing OracleDriver
orai18n.jar - jar for internationalization

Thanks a lot in advance!

I have similar problem. I have managed to use 10g driver with 9i database but for a standalone hibernate application i use for testing some things. But under application I made with spring i get the same error as you.
Let me know if you have found something out.
Driver 9g contains gss package in its jar while 10g does not. That's all i know so far.

This is clearly a problem with Oracle's drivers. I would venture a guess that it is trying to set one of its NLS language-params which is not available in 9i based on system settings.

Another option might be to change the JVM default locale rather than using the system default.

there isn't nls for your locales in new drivers, probably - you have description for adding new locale in jdbc documentation (read readme for jdbc 10g)