This article analyses the issues of transferring ethnic symbols from one closely related language to another, in particular from Ukrainian to Russian, with examples from Ukrainian song texts that have become precedent in Russian culture. However, the images and symbols of Ukraine with certain associative meanings which arises among the native Ukrainian still remain lacunar in the Russian language consciousness. To a greater extent, this applies to those phraseological units in which they are included, when they are transferred to another cultural register. Despite being recognisable by the native Russian and often quoted, they still require additional background comments and semantic explanations due to the discrepancy between their internal cultural content. Naturally, this issue arises when translating from any language, but the point of UkrainianRussian peculiarity is in the fact, that a foreign (Ukrainian) text, becoming the part of a closely related Russian culture, is not perceived by its speakers with an identical internal content with which it exists and uses in the original language, and sometimes even completely canceled or become a “worthless sign”.