The article examines the initial forging of Russian image in the West. This process is referred to in the literature as “the discovery of Russia by Europe.” The author contends that Western perceptions of Russia in the 15th and 16th centuries were conditioned not by information received from Russia, but from inner-European discursive practice. In other words, the formation of a Russian image in Western ideology depended not only on Russia – this ideology served specific inner-European needs. The West’s opening of Russia at the end of the 15th century is chiefly a manifestation of Europe’s own creation – Christendom’s search for its own historical-cultural identity in the Renaissance. The origins of this perception of Russia are linked with earlier-formed perceptions of Eastern Europe. From the end of the 15th century through the first third of the 16th, a positive perception of Russia with hope for its integration into Western Christendom dominated. European authors discussed the means of that integration and the advantages of this process for Europe. However, in the mid-16th century the opinion that Russians were “fundamentally different” from Europeans became firmly entrenched. Russia came to be seen as “anti-civilization.” This became the dominant approach beginning in the second half of the 16th century under the influence of the Livonian War. This approach remains powerful in European political discourse.