Abstract: The subject of the research is the Russian cabaret. The article presents a brief review of the creation and development of the cabaret in Russia. She pays special attention to cabaret as a new form of performance that had become an essential element of the Silver Age entertainment culture. The origin of the cabaret in Russia of the early XXth century is viewed by the author as an inevitable phenomenon created in the era f creative unsatisfaction and search with the blossom of the philosophy of free creativity, origin of completely new forms and aethetical principals in the background. In her research Arkhangelskaya touches upon the beginnings of the genre, aesthetic peculiarities of the cabaret as the main part of the entertainment culture of the early XXth century, and tries to compare Russian and Western European tradition. The author concludes that the analysis of the history of the Russian cabaret in terms of the socio-cultural cabaret environment allows to better understand the values of entertainment culture as one of the areas of modern pop culture.