The article focuses on the necessity of studying the values during the city branding process with the help of sociological methods. It is proved that the transfer of the foreign theory into to the Russian cities without any adjustment to national conditions in majority of cases doesn’t lead to any successful results. Considering the experience received at the conferences on branding in small and middle-size cities of Russia and based on the results of the personal research the authors conclude that with regard to the Russian theory and practice in city branding more attention should be paid to the values, that determine the stakeholders’ behavior.