Colour is an important part of any culture, and its perception differs from one ethnic group to another. This topic is popular not only in psychology where the colours' symbolism is studied in order to avoid cultural clashes in a process of cross-cultural communication, but also in linguistics where colour naming is studied in a separate section of lexicology, and also they form a significant layer in a list of phraseologisms and idioms.In this article, idioms that use colour naming in their semantics were subjected to the linguistic analysis in order to define their peculiarities and determine the optimal methods of their translation.The topic of translating idioms is under researched since different languages have their own linguistic lacunae (some realias of other cultures do not translate into a particular language), which to a great extent complicates the process of translation. In such cases the translators have to use the descriptive method, which, in our view, is not always appropriate.Since idioms represent a significant layer of any language, this topic is of a special interest to both translators and students of foreign languages, as this section may be particularly challenging for comprehension.We have examined colours from the perspective of cross-cultural communication in order to determine their connotation for several countries (including Russia, the UK, and the USA), and later reviewed conventional methods of translating colour idioms in order to find linguistic lacunae and ways of eliminating them in translation.The conducted research has prospects not only in the translation studies, but also in teaching, since competent translation of phraseologisms facilitates not only the readers' comprehension of the translated belles-lettres text and creates an image, but also helps students to find analogies in their native language and assimilate the material for further use.