Introduction. “The Petersburg text” was deliberately used By Leskov in the disclosure of images of righteous man. The writer takes already established in the Russian literature of the axiological significance of Petersburg. The purpose of this article is to study the functioning of the “Petersburg text» of Russian literature in the cycle “The Righteous Men”. Results, discussion. One of the methods of creating the image of Petersburg in the cycle is the image of the activity of officials, bureaucracy. Petersburg has an impact on the characters, becomes a place of testing their value system. In the “Righteous” NS. Leskov depicts the characters who were killed by “Petersburg circumstances” (left-hander (“Lefty”), Fermor (“Engineers-bessrebeniki”)), and characters with a spiritual core, heroes-righteous who are not subject to harmful influence (Ivan Flyagin (“Enchanted Wanderer”), Bryanchaninov and Chikhachev (Engineers-Bessarrenki, soldier Postnikov (“On the Clock”), Pygmy (“Pygmy”), Major-General Persian, economist Bobrov, Dr. Zelensky, cook Kulakov, Father Archimandrite (“The Cadet Monastery”)). The internal spiritual organ The characterization of the characters is a kind of immunity directed against the influence of the surrounding space, the environment, and it is the integrity of the hero's character that determines his resistance to Petersburg's influence of the charter. Conclusion. “Petersburg text” performs in the “The Righteous Men” cycle the function of creating conditions for the manifestation of value-significant qualities of the personality of the hero-righteous person. This function is realized as susceptibility / non-adherence to the influence of a destructive city and as a spiritual-moral test.