This article presents a result of qualitative research aimed to determine and identify the role and functions of literary magazines in the contemporary Russian literary process. The study was conducted in four Russian cities. It included 21 semi-structured interviews with different participants of the literary process, and magazines’ staff. It also involves participant observations of the magazines’ working routine. An optional range of materials is used to triangulate data. This paper examines the interaction of literary magazines with different actors of the literary process, i.e., literary awards, literary contests, writers, aspiring authors, and regional libraries. The paper explains why an aspiring author needs to be published in such magazines at the beginning of his/her writing career. Overall, the researcher comes to the conclusion that literary magazines play a significant role in the literary process, as they perform a number of functions necessary for its normal functioning. However, the position of the magazines is ambivalent, because, on the one hand, they are financially unstable and not well-known outside the professional community, while on the other hand, the magazines have the expert function that gives the right to influence the development of modern literature process by approving, or not approving, certain texts.