When determining the minimum themes of “life and institutions” in teaching foreign languages, abstract words, which have specific meanings and features in individual languages and are an important part of linguo-cultural competence of students of foreign languages or future foreign language teachers, are often neglected. Both in Russian and Czech, there are abstract words related to various areas of life. Some of these words may be classified as those related to the nation´s life and institutions, some of them may point to the specific perception of reality typical of the specific nation and its language (e.g. intelligentnosť, pohoda etc.). The abstract words which are specific only for one language and are related to philosophy, psychology, sociology and other fields important for the formation of (national) mentality should be given special attention to within foreign language teaching, and should be included in teaching the nation´s life and institutions the way the phenomena related mainly to material culture of the given nation are discussed. This contribution deals with the definition of such abstract words which should be paid attention to within the Russian and Czech vocabulary.