The article compares administrative and management structures of A.D. Balashov’s governorship-general district including five governorates in central Russia and A.N. Bakhmetev’s district including five governorates in the Volga region. It is hypothesized that the study of the structure of the councils under the Governors-General appointed should provide the insights into the specific details of the documentary grounds for the introduction of the governor-general form of government during the implementation of Alexander I’s governorship-general program. The author concludes that A.N. Bakhmetev’s activities were deprived of experimental, constitutional component present in A.D. Balashov’s experiment and constituted an attempt to reform the local government without strengthening the Governor-General's power over the regional offices of ministries as provided for in the 1816 Project for Establishing Governorships-General. This stemmed from the idea of abandoning the countrywide establishment of advisory bodies under the Governor General, which was documented in the 1821-1822 Draft Instruction for Governors-General.
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