One of the important and multifaceted areas of modern Russian and international humanities is so called “Russian studies”. The conceptual formation of the domestic Russian studies (“otechestvovedeniye”) refers to the 1990s. In that period researchers turned to the study of Russian civilization as an integral and independent scientific object. Russian studies explore the socio-cultural, political, economic and many other aspects of “civilization portrait” of the country, thereby forming a multidisciplinary knowledge of the Russian different historical eras. The article is devoted to the analyses of prospects and problems of “Russian Studies” and “Russian regional studies” as disciplines in the Russian system of higher education. In addition, the authors tried to define transformations of the concept “Russian studies” during the past two decade. Institutionalization of Russian studies as a new research direction was at the turn of 20th and 21th centuries. It was connected with the organization of scientific centers of Russian studies and the implementation of higher education discipline “Russian studies” which is taught within the master’s programs. The authors concluded that objectives and educational results of “Russian studies” and “Russian regional studies” as academic disciplines are still not clearly marked, as well as not determined definitively the status of these courses and programs. Nowadays there is no bachelor or master educational programs on “Russian studies”, and the corresponding center in the Russian State Humanitarian University trains masters in history, political science and philology. Keywords: Russian studies; higher education system; regional studies; multidisciplinary knowledge; international humanities; civilization approach.