This article is devoted to very popular subject - usage - preferentially in the modern texts - of the set of phrases which are quite often ranked as different classes of units - to sayings, idioms, popular expressions, but the phenomena integrated by the nomination of objects, people, the abstract entities, which are anyway connected with the Russian national attitude, the Russian character, a psychoemotional spirit, traditions, creativity etc., and understood as manifestations of Russian spirit. Examples of preferentially last time from Internet sources (blogs, the websites, etc.) and the National Russian Corpus attracted in the analysis allow to see as unequal quantitative representation of separate expressions ( the Russian spirit, Russian by spirit; Pushkin's This Russian spirit, There is a smell of Russia ) and distinction in scope of the events and the facts lit with usage of these phrases. Semantic ambiguity, diffusion of very common expression the Russian spirit used for the characteristic of people, their behavior and acts, and the objects of a material world and the abstract phenomena, becomes obvious as a result of the analysis. The range of meanings and functional application of this phrase isn't exhausted by the examples and dictionary interpretation given by us. To some extent it concerns also other expressions.