Hepatitis A virus (HAV) continues to cause outbreaks of viral hepatitis which still remains a socially significant disease despite existing vaccines. The strains of HAV generally used for vaccine production require a long-term incubation of infected cell cultures, up to 4 weeks. There are several HAV strains that grow fast on cell cultures, 7—10 days. This paper presents the results of virological characterization and genome analysis of HAV strain MB-7/293 (HepA-293) derived from fast-growing HAV strain MB-7/4647 by its adaptation it to HEK293 cells (human embryonic kidney cells). It has been shown that the strain MB-7/293 when cultured in HEK293 cells significantly exceeds the parent strain MB-7/4647 in terms of productivity, i.e. the yield of infectious virus and the virus-specific antigen. The analysis of nucleotide sequence full-length genomic RNA of the strain MB-7/293 showed that it differed from that of the strain MB-7/4647 by three nucleotide substitutions in the 5’-untranslated region and twenty nucleotide substitutions in the coding region. It led to ten amino acid substitutions in the VP3, VP1, 2B and 2C proteins. Comparative analysis of MB-7/4647 and MB-7/293 genomes and genomes of other HAV strains, including known fast-growing strains, revealed mutations affecting reproductive properties of the virus.