The article analyses the state of the domestic economic over the past twenty years and the influence of the changes in it on the foreign trade. It reveals the main factors, which had either positive or negative effects on both exports and imports in the context of the encountered economic crises and processes of overcoming them. The article presents data on the dynamics of the main macroeconomic parameters and indices of the foreign trade. It states that changes in the global prices and devaluation of the rouble were not always the cause of the corresponding growth or decrease in the real volumes of exports and imports. Besides, the increase in exports was mostly the result of the output growth while and the widening imports - of higher domestic demand.