The matter of the study is transformation of political culture as a component of the modernization process in Russia. The author analyzes a discoordinated character of reforms in economical, political, social and cultural spheres in the frames of the endogeneous-imitational model of development. Particular emphasis has been given to the process of borrowing west-european patterns and filling them with traditional Russian cultural content. As a result of the process there appear contradictions between the forms of political institutions and the nature of their functioning, between a formal political institute and real power structure in country.