The article is devoted to analysis of problems of interethnic relations, relationship of the etnocultural associations and the state in the modern period of forming nation in Russia. From the author's point of view the nation is the civil and political society of people that is independent from their ethnical identification. The author conducts the idea of necessariety of depolitization of ethnicity and the refusing from the ethnical model of state for the successful fulfillment of forming the national state. The courses of appearance of ethnical nationalism are investigated in the article. The direct dependence of ethnical nationalism from the political purposes and ambitions of ethnical political elites are demonstrated.