Each country has its own history of development of federal principles. Last years sharp debates about such questions as: symmetric and asymmetric federations, true or pseudo-federation, concepts of "new", "democratic", "multilevel", "ethnic", "Euroasian" federalism took place in Russia. The world experience showed that all of the federal states actually are asymmetric. Such flexible form of federalism is especially important for the multiethnic states. It helps to promote democracy, increasing election ratio and opportunity to take part in government not only on central level, but on the various levels as well. Ethnic diversity of Russian federalism is very important factor of successful democratic transformation of Russia.