This article is devoted to the analysis of one of the key problems of the strategy of modern Russian state youth policy. This is the problem of sustainable dominance in youth policy of the motives of state charity (systematic investments of budget funds in solving current problems of youth, in general, or of individual groups) over the motives of national-state interest (ensuring the sovereignty and security of the country, solving the problems of its economic development) throughout the post-Soviet era and up to the present day. The long and intensive search for the Russian national idea during this period did not signifi cantly aff ect the structure of motives for cooperation between the state and its young citizens in issues of upbringing, education, professional guidance and value choice. The author sees the reason that youth policy ideologically developed on its own and the search for a national idea did not fi ll it with any fundamentally new meanings in specifi c technology of such searches as political technology. The specifi city reveals itself in the fact that the search was aimed at maximizing the improvement of the theoretical doctrine, designed to become a new Russian national idea, at giving it original form and content. At the same time, issues of applying such a theoretical doctrine to solve practical problems of internal Russian social policy and, in particular, state youth policy were excluded from the discussion. Today there is a turn in Russian politics: institutions and practices common to liberal democracies are increasingly fi lled with a conservative-patriotic meaning. The resumption, in this regard, of the search for the Russian national idea may repeat the fate of previous experiments in this direction. In this case, the motives of youth policy do not form a signifi cant connection with national-state interests and the prospect of bringing it through the eff orts of its subjects to some qualitatively new level will once again be postponed indefi nitely.