The aim of the article is to consider the specific character of youth policy in contemporary Russia by retrospectively analyzing its establishment, its laws and regulations, its theories (types and models) conceptualized depending on youth perception patterns (as a problem or resource), the place and role of youth (as a subject or object). The action-activity-based approach, rooted in the ideas of leading sociologists P. Bourdieu, A. Giddens, P. Sztompka, serves as methodological framework. Results: The dependence of the youth policy on the president's agenda, its secondariness, its non-publicity and uninformativity, governmental-paternalistic focus, abundant fictions and simulations, archaism, marketing logic, etc. have been revealed. These features are attributable to substitution of youth policy for its specific format - state (government) youth policy. As corrective measures, it is proposed to make the youth subjectness principle real (through the development of civil society institutions). Conclusion: Considering that the identified problems stem from the dissonance between the youth subjectness principle declared in the scientific-theoretical discourse and regulatory environment and the absence of political will and conditions for actualizing this principle, the hope for fundamental transformation of the Russian youth policy is premature.