The use of proportionality in different jurisdictions demonstrates universal approaches to the protection of the fundamental rights. At the same time, some countries preserve the uniqueness of their legal culture, introducing new aspects to the content of this principle. Studies of national models of proportionality draw attention to underresearched problems. In this regard, the aim of this paper is to analyze the Russian model of the proportionality principle, taking into account the general trends in global constitutionalism. The author intentionally does not conduct a dogmatic analysis of proportionality in constitutional law. The key argument of this paper is that, today, the Constitution of Russia cannot be understood by means of formal logic. The 2020 Constitutional Amendments have further increased the gap between black-letter rules and law in action. Hence, the paper researches, first of all, the social and cultural context of proportionality in Russian law. The structure of the paper is as follows. It starts, in the first section, with an overview of the idea of proportionality in Russian mythology and folklore. The author draws attention to the problem of borrowing of the metaphor of scales by Russian culture and analyzes the manifestation of proportionality in Russian proverbs and sayings. The second section provides an outline of the evolution of proportionality in the legal history of Russia in light of possible limitations of public power. The reflection of proportionality in law of Ancient Rus, the Moscow state, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union is given a consistent consideration. The paper also defines the nature of proportionality in terms of survival of the socialist legal tradition in Russia.