The ethnopolitical situation in Russia is characterized by a historically developed combination of national-territorial and administrative-territorial principles of the state organization. According to the Constitution of 1993 (Article 65), the Russian Federation is composed of 89 subjects including 21 republics (Adygeia, Altai, Bashkiriya, Buryatiya, Chechnia, Chuvashia, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kalmykia, Karachaevo-Cherkess, Karelia, Khakassia, Komi, Mari El, Mordvia, North Ossetia, Tatarstan, Tuva, Udmurtia, Yakutia-Sakha), one autonomous region, and ten autonomous areas which are in fact national-administrative formations, and six territories, 49 regions, two cities of federal status (Moscow and St. Petersburg).

Only in 7 of the national-administrative formations - subjects of the Russian Federation - the titular nations form the majority of their population. For example, in the republic of Khakassia the titular nation, the Khakassians, make up 11% of the total population and the Russians - 79.5%, in the Republic of Altai the national structure of population is the following: 31% - Altais, 60% - Russians, 6% - Kazakhs and 3% - other nations. Practically all the subjects of the federation have a multiethnic type of population. For example, the population of the Republic of Kalmykia is ethnically diverse, people of about 90 nationalities live there with two groups dominating, namely the Kalmyks (45.4 %, that is 146,316) and the Russians (37.7%, that is 121,531) (Kornoussova, 2000).

Russian is the state language and the means of cross-cultural communication, and the Russians make 83 % of the population in the Russian Federation. The analysis of the population census allows to reveal some important tendencies in the linguistic process in modern Russia. The difference in the indexes of linguistic "russification" of some peoples has turned out to be significant, rising from a small number to 70% and more. The highest indexes are those of numerically weak ethnic groups, especially of the aboriginal peoples of Siberia and the Far North. Some representatives of the minority peoples of the North do not use their mother tongues in everyday life. 94% of the students admitted to the faculty for the Peoples of the Far North at Gertsen Russian State Pedagogical Institute in Saint Petersburg do not speak their mother tongues (Tzyrenova, 2000). As for the Kalmyks, they use most of the time Russian in their interactions within their families, in the streets, in their working places, and "russification" can be estimated up to 99%. Though the titular nations of the republics, especially the peoples of the Northern Caucasus, are the least assimilated.

The Constitutions of practically all the republics declare two state languages. The exceptions are: the Constitutions of Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Mordvia - multilingualism, in North Ossetia - Russian and Ossetian (both of the dialects). There is no regulation concerning the state language in the Constitutions of Karelia, Bashkortostan, Chechen and Chuvash Republics. By the present moment the language decrees have not been adopted only in Karelia, Udmurtia, Dagestan and Karachaevo-Cherkess. The extended language decrees of peoples, living on the territory of a corresponding republic, are adopted in Tatarstan, Adygea, Kabardino-Balkaria, Chuvashia, Tuva, Buryatia, Kalmykia, Khakassia, Sakha-Yakutia, Udmurtia, Bashkortostan.

The language decrees in the republics have been based on the respective federal laws adopting to a great extend their structure, conceptual framework and the interpretation of some articles. In accordance with the language decrees of the republics, the languages of the peoples of corresponding republics enjoy the protection of the state, and the state bodies provide for the social, economic and legal protection of the languages irrespective of their statuses. But as it is stated in the paper "Russian Peoples' Languages Development is a Priority of State National Policy" delivered at the International Seminar "Minority languages in Russia: perspectives for development" by Zoya U. Tzyrenova, chief of the Department for Relations with National-Cultural and National Societies of Ministry for Ethnic Affairs of the Russian Federation, the decrees of republics differ from federal ones in their stress on priorities: the former are mainly preoccupied with providing conditions for the revival, preservation and development of the language of a people (languages of peoples) after which a particular republic is named, that is of the titular nation or nations. Undoubtedly, this needs to be taken in the right spirit and should not be misused to cause neglect of the linguistic rights of the speakers of other languages (Tsyrenova, 2000).