The article is devoted to the study of primary elections. The author presents the main distinctive characteristics of the Russian advance poll from the American primaries. Much attention is paid to the history of formation of Institute of the primaries in Russia. The author believes that this procedure is new and just beginning to go through the stage of institutionalization. It is shown that the appearance of primaries in Russia due to pragmatic considerations of political benefit. The author came to the conclusion that the preliminary elections in Russia are unique and not similar to Western models