The article examines relevance of conflicts studies through the concept of social tension. There are two main parts in the paper. The first one is devoted to the conceptualization of the problem. It deals with key problems of modern Russia society and the main characteristics of the social tension. The second part consists of the experience of empirical study in which social tension is a central issue. This paper is based on the empirical study, which was conducted by the authors in St. Petersburg, Russia. In this research the tools designed for measurement of social tension in the urban community were tested. For the analysis of the empirical data authors used such methods as micro-analysis of crosstabs with standardized residuals and chi-square; cluster analysis. The empirical research indicates an important role of the social tension in conflict analysis and shows some of the main indicators of social tension.