The article concerns the main stages in the development of the Russian-Kalmyk relations which ended in the kalmyks' integrating into the system of Russian statehood. And the basic principle was the social and cultural space of the Russian empire, which was within the context of international relations. The noted peculiarities of the social organization of Kalmyk society prevented the so-called Kalmyk khanate from becoming the subject of the system of international relations. In spite of the attempts of some Tayshis and Khans to ensure a de jure recognition of the new political entity their contractors considered the Kalmyk's in a pragmatic aspect only as military allies; what is more, even as a military ally the Kalmyk's did not represent unity, since the uluses had a certain degree of autonomy not only in the internal affairs, but in the external ones, too. The economic and political importance of the Lower Volga region as well as of the Volga route on the whole had determined the Russian state's special attention to the Kalmyk affairs. But at the same time the long history of the Russian-Kalmyk relations had created some advantages in the establishing of closer links. Nevertheless, the process of the integration did not go smoothly, which found its expression at the last stage in the departure of a considerable number of the Kalmyk's ("the Torgote escape") for the depopulated Jungaria. However, the majority of the fugitives had died on the road, but those who were lucky to reach their destination were to feel the hard consequences of the policy of the Qing Chine. The important result of the processes under scrutiny is the fact of the preservation and actually of the formation of a united Kalmyk ethnic entity exactly within the system of the Russian social and political space.