The practice of training foreign students in Russian universities is associated with the solution of many problems, one of which is the process of ethno-cultural communication. In the process of achieving a successful entry of foreign students in the vocational training process, they have to overcome the following contradiction: on the one hand, is an adequate level of preparedness (communicative competence) of international students to the perception of the educational information and the requirements of the higher school; on the other hand, is poor adaptation to new climatic and living conditions, the new educational system and language communication. Dynamism and a multifactor problem of ethno-cultural communication of regular sociological monitoring and regular improvement of social and educational technologies provide solutions for pressing challenges shaping the intercultural communicative competence of foreign students in their professional and training adaptation in Russian universities. This article presents the results of a sociological study of current problems of foreign students’ ethnocultural communication in Lipetsk State Pedagogical University that is a typical regional university in the Central Federal District.