The objective of the present study was to elucidate the specific ethnic and territorial peculiarities of the papillary patterns on the fingers of the Russians, Kyrghyz, and Uzbeks for the development of the criteria for the purpose of differential diagnostics. The materials for the analysis included the fingerprint cards obtained from 3570 Russians, 118 Kyrghyz, and 73 Uzbeks (men at the age from 14 to 25 years). We compared the data on the occurrence of different types of the papillary patterns. The significance of the differences was estimated with the use of the Student t-test. The comparative analysis of the papillary patterns showed that the Russians had the largest number of the arch patterns (8.2%) in their fingerprint cards whereas the Uzbeks had the lowest number (3.7%) of such patterns. The whorl patterns most frequently occurred in the fingerprint cards of the Kyrgyz (36.9%) whereas relatively few Russians exhibited this pattern (22.3%). Statistically significant differences were documented between the samples from the Russian and the Kyrgyz as well as from the Russians and the Uzbeks (p<0.01) whereas the difference between the Kyrgyz and the Uzbeks was insignificant (p>0.05). The list of 20 informative signs of the greatest diagnostic value is compiled taking into consideration the hand (right or left) and the sequential position of each finger. It is shown that the use of these signs makes it possible to distinguish between the «Russian» and «Kyrgyz» («Uzbek») papillary patterns on several fingers. Because the diagnostically significant combinations of the signs are known to occur but rarely, it is necessary to continue the search for the additional diagnostic traits in order to extend the sphere of practical applicability of the proposed method.