The article undertakes to analyze the activities of governors-general, or the sovereign’s deputies, in Russia of the 18th to the 19th century. Responding to the question whether it is rightful to juxtapose this institution with that of the President’s representatives the authors point to a considerable difference between the two. The governors-general had the right to suspend the decisions of local power, whereas the President’s representatives are not possessed of this right. Yet these institutions have functional similarity. Each of them is called for to carry out State supervision in the provinces, to see to the compliance of the provincial administration’s activities with the interests of supreme power. Since it upset the strict bureaucratic system of czarist Russia, the institution of governors-general faced opposition of the ministries’ officialdom and in the long run, during the 19th century, gradually lost its significance, having been retained, true, just in some few regions where the Empire’s integrity and security were found imperiled.