The present article focuses on stable comparisons as an archetypical embodiment of cultural memory and argues for the need to study them as a means of cultural conservation. There was made an attempt to reveal the cultural connotation of some standard images of stable comparisons in Romanian , Russian and German languages. A systemic analysis of a contrastivetypological nature, going beyond the confines of a bilingual perspective, is an appropriate theoretical contribution to the field of phraseology. Knowledge of the relationships between meanings, components and variety of images, which underlie phraseological comparisons is of relevance for European intercultural communication.