ENThe paper proposes some means for students in emigration in the process of preservation of ethnic culture and assimilation of another culture. The role of, acquisition of which is based on finding analogy to and difference with another culture in the fiction and folklore of the Russian and Lithuanian nations, are analyzed in the paper. Students, getting acquainted with words-symbols, learn that the meaning of every word is based on some concept, which reflects world perception by our ancestors and at the same time forms a link between the two cultures and helps in the formation of national identity.