Abstract: The subject of this article is the national auto-stereotypes of Russians. Perestroika and the subsequent social transformation significantly influenced the collective representation, touching upon the system of ethnic identity, the structure of which includes the ethnic auto-stereotypes. The need for examine the direction of transformation of the Russian ethnic stereotype defined the subject of this article. The authors conduct a theoretical and empirical analysis of the semantic content of auto-stereotypes of the Russians. The empirical study contained the two methods of collecting information: projective drawing and survey. The scientific novelty is first and foremost determined by the combination of methods, which allowed examining not only the conscious auto-stereotypical representations, but also the unconscious that are difficult to verbalize. The acquired result confirmed the appropriateness of such approach, having demonstrated the considerable variations between the conscious and unconscious auto-stereotypes of the Russians. While according to the data from surveys the respondents describe their countrymen as positive overall, the processing of projective drawings illustrate that the unconscious auto-stereotypes of the Russian rather have an extensive number of negative connotations.