In this article, the author undertakes to deal with models of Russian regions’ participation in the system of international relations. Administrative models, network models (religious networks and ethnic networks) and corporative models are defined and considered in the article. The author points to the contradiction characteristic of Russia’s borderland regions, where the need for trans-border cooperation is combined with somewhat higher popularity of nationalism and isolationism. For the preparation of the article were used materials of the paper “The Rise of Subnational Regions in Global Politics: In Search for a Theory and the Case of Russia” – presented by the author at the World Congress of Political Science (Santiago de Chile, 2009).