The article deals with the image of China and the Chinese in Russian non-fiction works in the context of colonial discourse. The article analyses the works of Russian travellers from the 19th to the early 20th century, mainly travel sketches, diaries, reports, letters, memoirs, political essays etc., and describes the travellers’ impressions of China and the Chinese as well as the problems that they discovered in China during the last century of the Qing Empire. At the same time, we reveal the evolution of the image of China and the Chinese as the image of the Other in the works of Russian travellers and their different attitudes to the weakened China and its impoverished people, who fell victim to the expansion and colonization of great powers. At the end of the article, the author makes a conclusion that the evolution of the image of China and the Chinese in Russian travellers’ texts, which affected the Russian mentality and literature of that time, is closely related to the complicated and changeable political and social-economic situation in China and the Sino-Russian relations.