In the broad sense of the word human capital is a specific form of capital that is embodied in people themselves. It consists of the individual's reserve of health, knowledge, skills, abilities, and motivations that enable him to increase his labor productivity and give him an income in the form of wages, salaries, and other income. The structure of human capital is generally said to consist of natural abilities, overall culture, general and specialized knowledge, acquired abilities, skills, and experience, and the ability to put them to use at the right time and in the right place. Investment in human capital comes to constitute an important asset that provides an individual with a higher flow of income all his life. It should be noted, at the same time, that it is a particular form of capital. Under the conditions of the market economy there are many phenomena and processes that take on commodity and monetary forms and can be seen as an asset that yields a regular income. And the individual himself is no exception to that; many of his characteristics (his knowledge, abilities, skills, and experience), while they do not constitute commodities, money, or capital as such, do take on these historically transient forms and do begin (quite successfully) to try these types of apparel on for size, these social forms that are new to them. In recent years even the individual's genetic nature, physical and mental qualities, strength, good looks, and cleverness have come to be seen as a particular form of physical capital. If cultural capital is taken into account, then "human capital in the narrow sense of the word" includes only general and specialized knowledge, acquired abilities, skills, and experience, and also the ability to make use of them at the right time and in the right place. In real life, however, it is actually rather difficult to separate one from the other. Each of these forms presumes something else, it turns into something else, it creates itself as something else. This article discusses how things stand in Russia in regard to the development of human capital. [This article was translated by Kim Braithwaite.] (Contains 8 figures and 8 tables.)