OBJECTIVES: To investigate the state of health economic research in Russia available in the English language by describing the number and characteristics of the articles, and assessing the quality of these articles. METHODS: The study assessed the state of health economics and pharmacoeconomics research in Russia. We conducted a literature search to identify health economics articles pertaining to Russia. Each article in the final sample was scored by two reviewers independently using the data-collection form designed for the study. RESULTS: In total, 16 studies investigating a wide variety of diseases were included in the study. These articles were published in 15 different journals all based outside of Russia between 1994 and 2009. On average, each article was written by seven authors. Most first authors had medical/clinical training and resided in the USA (n = 8) at the time of publication of the study. Based on a scale of 1–10, with 10 indicating the highest quality, the mean quality score for all studies was 8.09 (SD = 1.29) and 25% of the articles were of fair quality (score 5–7). The quality of articles was statistically significantly related (P <0.05) to the primary health intervention (pharmaceuticals > non-pharmaceuticals) and primary training of the first author (medical > non-medical). CONCLUSIONS: The conduct of health economics and pharmacoeconomics research in Russia in the English language is limited and, on average, the published articles were of good quality. However, about one-quarter of published articles were of fair quality. More health economics research in English is warranted in Russia.