World exhibitions of the second half of the XIX century. Could not help attracting the attention of their Russian contemporaries. For the countries of catching-up development, the exhibitions were both a kind of reference point and an opportunity to either declare their cultural, economic and technical achievements, or proclaim the uselessness of those. The Paris exhibition of 1889 received much more resonance in the Russian press than all previous exhibitions. This was facilitated not only by the scale of the event, but also by its social and political context: confinement to the centenary of the Great French Revolution. For the Russian conservative press, this was an additional occasion to reflect on the prospects for Franco-Russian rapprochement.