The purpose of the article is to discuss the strategies of integrating students from the CIS countries into higher education educational environment of the Russian Federation. The result of research shows that the CIS participating countries have been doing continuous work on the legal framework formation that allows citizens of these countries to grow professionally and collaborate within a similar legal environment. Besides, there is evidence that close proximity to home countries, positions of the Russian universities in international rankings or studying in the Russian language and using it as a means of inter-ethnic communication
generate interest in the Russian higher education system. Finally, the authors discuss a case of the Institute of Philology, Journalism and Intercultural Communication on the integration of students from Turkmenistan into the educational environment of the Southern Federal University, i.e. tell about how combination of several individual educational tracks within one educational program can help retain students at university.