The article reflects historical and modern problems of Russian-Japanese relations and gives an image of Japanese perception of Russia. From its first meeting in XVIII century to nova days these connections were and are not close and truly friendly. This situation is largely retained due to mutual stereotypes in the perception of each other. A studying of key reasons, why two countries are not able to construct good mutual political and economical links is the object of article too. In globalization conditions, a studying of Russian language in Japan has increased, but interest to Russian culture heavily weakened. Classical Russian culture is still popular among the older generation only, and the most vivid symbols associated with Russia are, cold vodka, Putin, Northern Territory, space exploration and ballet. Modern Russia is not so terrible and respected, and therefore uninteresting. In such pessimistic background we hope that the problems in the Russian-Japanese dialogue will be solved and the bilateral re