Past and present relations of Russia and the west: socio-cultural aspects

This article attempts to review the cultural and social foundations of relations between Russia and the West, through the study of historical and contemporary material, by considering them as historically and at the present stage of relations’ development. Thus, the relationship between Russia and the West has a variety of shades - from overt hostility to attempts of repeating of all from their practices. The article offers some examples describing these relations with the indication of the scientists’ works analyzing this problem. In addition, it attempts to make a preliminary conclusion about the indisputable facts of mutual exclusion and misunderstanding, and as a result a number of acute problems in relations between Russia and the West are generated at the present stage of historical development.