The paper analyses features of modern Russians’ ideas about happiness, opportunities and ways people see to achieve it, social and psychological aspects of building a happy life. It focuses on revealing the magnitude of various factors affecting formation and maintenance of a state of happiness. The analysis is based on the data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE). The authors describe difficulties impeding the formation of a positive emotional state and spiritual comfort, dependence of happiness on the age and level of education, social status and employment, material well-being and physical health. This paper argues that despite the variety of ways and means to find a happy life, as well as individual subjectivity of happiness, the state of happiness can be long-lasting and durable only if based on economic foundation that provides a decent, or, at least, more or less acceptable level of well-being. With the improvement of living standards to the fore increasingly go intangible circumstances that help people feel happy. Analysis of the impact of marital status on happiness shows that married statute increases feeling of happiness in individual men and women, but does not increase total numbers of happy people.