During the period of planned economies in Russia and Poland, services were underestimated as a sector of economic activity. To some degree, this continues to be the case. In spite of the existence of market economies in Central and Eastern Europe for more than 25 years, Russia and Poland should be categorized differently in terms of economic and social development. Based on D. Bell’s and his followers’ (M. Castells, A. Toffler, J. Rifkin, P. Drucker) theory of post-industrial society and post-industrial economy, Poland can be classified as a post-industrial country, while Russia is still an industrial country in many aspects. This point of view is based on global statistics and cross-country comparisons. The following statistical data has been used as a source for this research: share of services in GDP by country, contribution (value added) of seven main types of services to the respective GDP of Russia, Poland and other selected countries, value added and governmental expenditures per capita of primary services in aforementioned economies. The main differences between the Russian and Polish service sectors are indicated. The cases of Russia and Poland are presented here to highlight the key common features of Central and Eastern European countries’ tertiary sectors.

The presented article gives a general description of the sphere of non-material production of Russia and Azerbaijan, which is based on the key macroeconomic indicators. The internal heterogeneous structure of the sector is also illustrated, structural features of the service sector and its individual segments in both countries are revealed. The objectivity and adequacy of the sphere characteristics of non-material production of Russia and Azerbaijan is based on intercountry comparisons. Macroeconomic indicators of main developed countries (the USA, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom), the BRICS countries and the former Soviet republics serve as a background for the illustration of the service sectors of Russia and Azerbaijan. It is too early to refer Russia and Azerbaijan to post-industrial countries, even considering only one economic parameter - the structure of the economy. Considering the gross value added (GVA) of the service sector per capita in current prices and the GVA of the service sector per capita in constant 2010 prices, Russia and Azerbaijan lag behind the leading economies of the world, some BRICS countries and even some former republics of USSR. In this regard, the study of the sphere of intangible production is not so popular in Russia and Azerbaijan, as the economic background for the actualization of these studies has not been yet created.