Teacher education at the present stage of its development undergoes changes because of the processes of globalization in general plus the influence of the Bologna process. This diminishes the level of Russian pedagogical experience. For the country like Russia, with its diversity of languages, traditions, ethnicities and cultures the pedagogical traditions of peoples are of a great importance for the modern teacher education. The main idea of the article is that “the civic task of education and the education system is to give each one absolutely mandatory amount of human knowledge, which is the basis of self-identity of the people” (from an article by Vladimir Putin “Russia: the national question”). The purpose of this article is to identify and study of ethno-cultural and social dominants of teacher education in the national region. The main approaches in considering the Russian system of teacher education in the article are defined as: evolutionary, axiological, regional approaches which allow us to consider the teacher education as a cultural-historical and ethno-cultural phenomenon. As an example for the analysis and synthesis of the Russian teacher education in historical perspective and actual measurements two national republics of the Volga region—Mari El and the Chuvash Republics are taken.