In the reign of Peter I the Great diplomats were not only representatives of Russian interests in the world but were also media of national cultural values dissemination. A vivid example of such experience is Prince B. I. Kurakin. Being in Rome he tried to understand the essence of political and economic arrangements of the society, peculiarities of social development. As the description of Rome was one of the first B. I. Kurakin’s impressions of the West, it was a bit naïve.