The paper presents the development of a Russian language questionnaire “Scale of Positive and Negative Affectivity” (SPANA) based on the English-language PANAS measure. The cross-cultural equivalence of the short 20-item version of the questionnaire was tested by means of multi-group confirmatory factor analysis using data from an English-language (N=450) and a Russian-language (N=475) sample. Measurement unit equivalence of the two instruments was established, although full score equivalence was not fully supported by the data. The new SPANA instrument shows high reliability and predictable associations with other subjective well-being indicators. Cultural and gender differences in positive and negative score are presented and discussed. The latent structure of an extended 57-item pool of Russian-language emotional descriptors is presented, resulting in a set of scales similar to PANAS-X available for research use.