On 2-3 December, St. Petersburg hosted the First International Conference "Middle Class. Myths and Realities". Vedomosti St. Petersburg together with the Daria and SELA companies acted as conference organizers. Foreign and Russian marketing maestro were talking about a destiny and mission of the Russian middle class, and about its contradictions and evolution. Among them were Thomas Gadd, the author of the bestseller "4D branding", Kyell Nordstrem, professor of Stockholm School of Economics, Tatiana Gorelova, manager of the project "Lifestyle of the middle class". Pyotr Zalesski, research director at "Komkon group", Igor Kachalov, senior partner of "Kachalov and colleagues", Alexei Sitnikov, president of consulting group "Image contact". The middle class in Russia is a new phenomenon. We still don't have a criteria that can identify a middle class niche. There are a lot of discussions going on about it. Conference participants did not have a goal to create a specific formula for marketing textbooks; they were just exchanging opinions. It was clear - the organizers have managed to start a discussion about the middle class. This discussion will be continued.