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.