Abstract: The subject of the research is the volume of ilegally harvested wood as a criminally-based characteristic of a crime as set forth by Article 191.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. According to the author of the article, this is an important practical issue that lacks a proper analysis. While imposing criminal responsibility for purchase, storage, transfer, processing and sale of ilegally harvested wood, the legislator hasn't made necessary amendments to the current rates and method of caculating the cost of illegally harvested wood. Based on teh analysis of the legislative basis for calculating the volume of ilegally harvested wood and law-enforcement practice of implementing the provisions of Article 191.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the author of the article proves that the calculation method described there cannot be used. This makes it impossible to adopt a legally biased judicial decision. The author offers a number of solutions and describes their positive and negative effects. The main conclusion of the research is that there is a need to change the method of calculating the volume of illegally harvested wood.