Introduction. The educational system is constitutive in all countries, it is one of the world’s largest systems that generates and reproduces human, intellectual, cognitive capital. National educational systems have both common features and differences, which are based on unique components – institutional genes. Russian education inherits many of the best traditions of the previous social system, thanks to which world recognized successes have been achieved. Most of these traditions have acquired the qualities of institutional genes, but this does not exclude the emergence of stable inefficient institutions, i.e. institutional traps. These are the characteristics of Russian education that are synthesized in its institutional portfolio as a topical and, in many ways, new research topic. Theoretical analysis. This study for the first time offers an approach to Russian education from the standpoint of institutional genetics. Institutional genes are a set of institutions, institutional structures, their interactions, mutual determinations, various rules of the game that are inherited, i.e. are transmitted from the previous economic system to the next, develop within the existing system, are constantly reproduced. Institutional genes can undergo processes of various changes - mutations and mimicry, dysfunctions, institutional pathologies. Empirical analysis. The main characteristics of institutional genes are highlighted: they are inherited, changed, reproduced within the framework of subsequent economic systems, which creates a certain predictability of trends in future socio-economic development and the possibility of choosing effective directions in politics. The study of new institutional traps in Russian education is of scientific interest, which is significant for determining the mechanisms of their leveling in the general course of systemic transformations. Results. An institutional portfolio of Russian education is presented, containing an analysis of the best traditions of the domestic education system, most of which is identified as institutional genes, and its new institutional traps. The significance of the appeal to the institutional genetics of Russian education and the existence of institutional traps, mechanisms for leveling them to substantiate the algorithm for the development of the educational system in accordance with its genesis, national priorities and strategic prospects is substantiated.