Referring to two evaluations criticising the economic situation and the organizational structure of Russian research institutions in the fields of art studies and social sciences in the 1990s, I compare the results of the Russian inside-assessments by Jampolskij and Zhivov with some studies carried out by German scholars who came to the conclusion that only a fundamental reform of scientific researchstructures on the basis of a prospective financial promotion by the Russian state can help avoiding the forthcoming breakdown. The evaluated Russian solutions and suggestions to overcome the reiterated faults and defects at the beginning of the 21st century are supposed to give no decisive impulses for a distinctive improvement of the situation.