In his interview, the American historian Paul Werth tells about contemporary state of Russian studies in the USA, his intellectual biography and the prospects of the studies of the Russian religious history. Nowadays in America Russian studies and other country specific researches face some problems. Nevertheless, the conferences are hold and the articles published even in the regions, which are distant from the main scientific centers. Paul Werth makes an overview of sources helping to reconstruct the dynamic of religious freedom in Tsarist Russia. The historian analyzes interaction of religious institutes of Russian Empire and its administrative structure, national movements, and ideological climate. Werth demonstrates that in the imperial Russia infringement of religious freedom was an effect of relationship between religious institutions and political, administrative and social structure of Empire, but not the result of a particular worldview. The research of the Russian imperial experience helps to draw the more general conclusion in the religious studies and social theory. For example, the level of religious freedom is negatively correlated to the use of religion in the secular public life.