The paper provides an empirical survey of rules applied for electing Russia’s regional legislative assemblies in 1993 to 1999. In order to explicate the political consequences of these rules, the paper employs the notion of their «dimensions» understood as alternative institutional choices. It is demonstrated that under the conditions of consolidated regional regimes, such choices are primarily motivated by the executive elites’ preferences. In particular, these preferences effectively arrest the spread of proportional rule in the regions of Russia.