Young people’s participation in optimizing interethnic relations is becoming particularly important in the face of growing interethnic tension, a rise of distrust and suspicion between countries and nations. Based on the analysis of data from the survey carried out among Muscovites aged 16-29, the article is aimed at showing the scale and nature of interethnic interaction between the Russian population of the capital and representatives of other ethnic groups in Moscow, attitude towards such contacts in different spheres of life (including interethnic marriages), young people’s evaluation of the interethnic situation in the city and opinion on the reasons for its instability.