Owing to the absence of clear-cut moral and ethical guidelines and ideas about what type of individual is in demand in present-day Russian society, to a large extent the value orientations of young people are being developed in a haphazard way. They are under the contradictory influence of on the one hand, the traditions of the folk culture, and, on the other, changing social conditions, instability, and risk. Some of these orientations are based on spirituality, characterized by the predominance of a moral outlook over material pursuits, by humanism and love for one's fellow human beings, a communal mentality. In this way, traditions of culture and social conditions are becoming "coordinates that determine the contradictory process of the socialization of today's young people." These presuppositions were tested in a sociological survey, conducted in two stages involving three groups of young people. Comparing these groups made it possible to determine the value of criteria of the different age groups and the characteristics of development of the young person's spiritual world. This article discusses the outcome of the survey which shows that there is an increasing differentiation of values among young Russians, related to their level of socioeconomic attainment.