Why is the disavowal of the problems of building a civic nation accompanied by growing attention to the issue of “Russian ethnicity” characterize the dominating discourse in polyethnic,polycultural, polyconfessional Russian Federation, where the prerequisites for successful civic nationbuildingexist along with the rising danger of ethnic nationalism? How real is the project of civic nation buildingis Russia and could the national integration be achieved in Russia – a country of ethnic, culturaland religious diversity? This article is an attempt to answer these questions. Among the key obstacles toconversion to the rhetoric (and practice) of building the civic nation of Russians are the understandingof the term “nation” as an ethnolinguistic or ethnocultural substance and the essentialist conception ofthe phenomenon of nation specific for Russian political, media, educational and academic discourses.“Ethnitisation” and “essentialisation” of the concept of nation embody in the practices of ethnic, cultural and religious diversity management based on two statements: for the survival of an ethnolinguistic, ethnocultural or ethnoreligious group “its own” nation-state is needed; the stability of a nation-state requires ethnolinguistic, ethnocultural and ethnoreligious homogeneity. The analysis of the egalitarianand multiculturalist approaches towards the issue of national integration in the society of diversityallows examining the possibility of implementation of the project of Russian nation that involves civicintegration along with protection of ethnic, cultural and religious multiplicity. Such an implementationrequires alteration of public discussions on “national”, which implies discursive renunciation of:reduction of “nation” to “ethnicity” and essentialist approach to apprehension the phenomenon ofnation; representation of political, economic, social problems in terms of ethnicity, culture, confession; rhetoric of dominance aimed at delineating of “state-constituting” ethnic, cultural, religious group.