Russian Neo-Paganism is increasingly attracting the attention of researchers. The question about the reasons of this social phenomenon, however, remains understudied. All endeavors to answer it have mostly been speculative. The thesis that Russian neo-paganism is a reaction of the society to the collapse of the Soviet Union and an attempt to find a new cultural identity is repeated in many works. This explanatory model emerged at the initial stage of studying this phenomenon. With more data available now it is possible to study this issue in more details. The author comes to the conclusion that the main prerequisite for the emergence of Russian neo-paganism was the liberalization of public life. Triggering factors were: intensification of the nationalist discourse and a keen interest in the origins of national history, dissatisfaction with the Christian worldview, particularly with the image of the Russian Orthodox Church, widespread interest to the occult ravaging the Russian society in the 1990s, degradation of Russian historical consciousness, concern of the part of the society for environmental problems and the development of a role subculture.