The problem of communicative difficulties experienced by adolescents of different nationalities in situations of cross-cultural communication in a heterogeneous school environment is discussed. A study was conducted in a Kostroma secondary school on a sample (n=l 16) of different nationalities: Russians (n = 32, native inhabitants), Gypsies (n = 32, second to fourth generation immigrants), Armenians (n = 27, representatives of "generation 1.75"), Tajiks (n = 25, representatives of "generation 1.5 or 1.25"). The study showed that success of cultural integration depends on the age at which migration took place: The younger the child, the more easily one adapts to a new cultural environment. It also revealed general communicative difficulties (basal and reflexive) characteristic of adolescents irrespective of their nationality or gender, and also specific difficulties of Russians, Tajiks, Armenians and Gypsies emerging in situations of cross-cultural communication in a school environment. The paper describes characteristics of adolescents' emotional states, variable links between emotions and communicative difficulties in adolescents of different nationalities. The communicative difficulties are mainly linked to asthenic (a feeling of impotence) and melancholic (oppressive) feelings whose function is ambivalent: On one hand, they may increase difficulty of cross-cultural communication, on the other, help to overcome communicative problems.