The study of the St. Petersburg historian is devoted to the 300-year history of Russian-Tibetan ties. The author talks about the birth in the XVIII century. these ties that arose thanks to religious contacts with Lhasa of Russian Buddhists - Kalmyks and Buryats, analyzes the most active phases of the political dialogue of the Russian Empire and then the young Soviet republic with Tibet, characterizes in detail the Tibetan policy of the USSR and the Russian Federation in the 2nd half of the 20th century, after the annexation of Tibet by communist China, as well as the current state of the Tibetan problem.