The paper continues analysis of the negative tendencies in the Russian sociology. The authors link the crisis of the professional identity of sociologists to the retreat from the principle of theory-empiricism unity and consistent evidencebased approach. We discuss results of an empirical study that includes survey of 1829 research articles from the top Russian and international sociological journals. The most obvious differences are stated in such areas as structure of research articles; their theoretical and methodological background; transparency of research methods; use of advanced methods in statistical data analysis.