Present paper focuses on the comparative analysis of the specifics of cognitive reserve and its associations with psychological well-being in aging in Saint-Petersburg and Nizhniy Novgorod. Cognitive reserve is a comparatively new but perspective phenomenon that is supposed to decrease the manifestations of cognitive degenerative processes in aging. Cognitive reserve is based on cognitively stimulating activities that one performs throughout lifespan, and thus it might be sensitive to both cultural differences between countries and demographic and cultural differences with diverse countries such as Russia. The project aimed to compare specifics of cognitive reserve functioning among aging populations of Saint-Petersburg and Nizhniy Novgorod. Participants were 200 older adults aged 50-81 from Saint-Petersburg (n = 100, Mage = 68.39) and Nizhniy Novgorod (n = 100, Mage = 67.88). Methods were cognitive reserve index questionnaire, Scale of psychological well-being. Results showed that descriptive statistics in both groups were similar while associations between the parameters differed. Participants from Saint-Petersburg had fewer associations within the characteristics of cognitive reserve and at the same time had direct associations with psychological well-being. In subjects from Nizhniy Novgorod we found results more consistent with international data, but we found no direct associations between cognitive reserve and psychological well-being. Thus, these data confirms the hypothesis that social, demographic, cultural and historical specifics of the region may affect the functioning of cognitive reserve.