Ethno-confessional factors played far from the main role in the formulation of the first federations. However, their importance increases in the XX century and especially in the era of globalization. The experience of Switzerland and Germany speaks of the importance of competition between faiths. Canada demonstrates the negative effects of ethnic dualism, while India shows the possibility of ethno-linguistic demarcation in conditions of particularly high multi-ethnicity. Under these circumstances, it would hardly make sense to plan the transformation of the multinational Russian Federation according to a purely  territorial-administrative principle.