This article concentrates on poverty debates during the last few years of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev and in Russia today under Yeltsin. Some references to previous years are made in order to provide some historical context for these debates. The article is divided into two parts: the first examines debates on the definitions of poverty, while the second looks at its depth and extent. The discussion will provide one more illustration of the now generally accepted thesis that the way poverty is defined inevitably affects the extent of measured poverty and the policy measures for its amelioration.