The article deals with recent problems of correlation of a speech genre and culture and fits into the context of modern researches in cognitive, dialect genre studies and cognitive dialectology. A key concept for Russian culture “Life”, functioning in dialect autobiographical texts, recorded in Tomsk region from the middle of the 20th century till the present time, is described in the article. These texts are considered as a speech genre. Ideas about life, which do not change or change over time under the influence of certain factors, are identified.