Russian motion verbs constitute a notoriously difficult topic for learners of Russian as a foreign language. These verbs incorporate aspect, directionality, manner of motion, path and tense within a single lexeme. Combined with various prefixes, they can also express more diverse types of motion. They can develop their meanings from spatial to more abstract ones. The conceptual motivation for metaphorical extensions may be more or less evident both to native speakers and learners of Russian as a foreign language. This paper shows with examples from real language that it is possible to make some generalizations about metaphorical development of spatial meanings of the Russian motion verbs. Providing them to learners may improve their understandings. Understanding of spatial schemas of prefixes may also ease comprehension of prefixed non-motion verbs. It was also concluded that in many cases Russian motion verbs used metaphorically do not express any real motion and are used for abstract concepts. This phenomenon in Russian can be understood in comparison to English phrasal verbs whose metaphorical extensions have been extensively scrutinized recently.