In the civilistic doctrine of contract negotiations, little attention is paid to the basis of this doctrine - the concept of negotiations. This omission in the civilistic doctrine have resulted in lack of developed understanding about criteria of negotiations and diverse positions on when negotiations begin and when they end. All this creates obstacles to the effective application of the doctrine of culpa in contrahendo, which has received a powerful development impetus following reform of civil law. The article at hand considers competing approaches to the definition of negotiations, examines importance of the intention of the parties as a factor in the negotiation process, as well as influence of pre-contractual contacts on the legal scope of the parties. While appealing to acts of international unification of private law, analysis of domestic judicial precedent allows to identify negotiations as the process of concluding a contract, in general, including attempt to reaching a consensus by the parties on the terms of the contract, giving necessary form to the agreement and committing actions which according to the law deemed and treated as conclusion of a real contract. As a result of the analysis, a definition of contract negotiations is formulated.