Under the circumstances of urgent need for acquiring new political principles that integrate heterogeneous Russian society in a unified concept of the nation and the state, interest in the problem of Russian identity is determined by serious challenges of everyday life, including the preservation of the integrity of the state, the localization of its political and cultural influence. Particularly topical becomes the study of identity in a multicultural environment, characterized by a multilevel and multi-political consciousness of citizens. The process of self-identification of the North Caucasus people is significantly affected by the factors of everyday events, that causes distortion of the whole system of notions. The study of psychological mechanisms of civil identification, definition of the place and role of the key components of political consciousness - notions about the country, state and country of residence, images of "us" and "others" through which comes the identificational choice of the average Caucasian, is the challenge of the modern period. In this context, of course, comes the suggestion that the specificity of identification construction (localization of notions, ethnicization, narrowing the social space to "our" region) is a fertile ground for updating the system of differences in the mechanisms of formation and sometimes for the crisis deformation of identities of Southern Russia residents. Research of the components of political consciousness, perception of "Russia" and "Country of Residence" by the citizens of the national-territorial entities in Russia is carried out by the staff of Department of Sociology and Political Psychology of the Faculty of Politology of the MSU under the project "Russian nation-state identity" in years 2006-2012. Thereby the formation of their political identity can be examined in logic from the point of three alternatives. The first alternative - the loyal all-Russian civil identity that in case of crisis becomes a starting point of frustration processes in the minds of inhabitants of the North Caucasus in the modern period. The second alternative - the negative civil identity replaced by regional identity. The second oneconsists of a set of ideas of the Russian state created in twothousandyears within denial of the Russian identity based onactualizing of some symbolical components of local and ethnic identityagainst the background of feeling of "offensiveness" and "forlornness" of the small people. The third alternative - synthesis of ideas of the Russian state, the country, patriotism and citizenshipand the realization of being united with a number of the traditional representations, popular local and ethnic identity.
