In the given article the problem of formation of ethnic consciousness of the population of one of most poly-ethnic country regions the Volga Region is investigated from the objective scientific point of view; aspects of ethnic identification of six nations of the Volga Region (Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Tatars, Chuvashes, Mordvins) as a component of social identity are considered. The point is to dwell on the undoubted urgency of the given processes influencing the process of democratisation of Russian society. As a result the author comes to a conclusion that ethnic identification is less topical in the Volga Region (takes the sixth place in the general list of identifications), than in whole in the country (the third place). The given phenomenon speaks for the originality and uniqueness of the population ethnogenesis of the considered region where one poly-ethnic space was formed with all the nations lived in identical social, economic and legal conditions. The consequence of the ethno-psychological situation was formation of the tendency of intercourse and inter-completion of substances ethnicity and mentality. Thus, it is possible to state that in consciousness of the Volga Region population of the period of the late 1990s the early 2000s the ideas of ethnic identity tend to transform, giving way to personal mentalities, thereby creating necessary social-psychological preconditions for integration of all the nations of the country in the all-Russian nation.

С научных позиций исследуется проблема формирования этнического самосознания населения одного из самых полиэтничных регионов страны Среднего Поволжья; рассматриваются аспекты этнической идентификации шести наций Волжского речного бассейна как составной части социальной идентичности.