Through the prism of the 1822 Charter by M. M. Speransky the authors consider periphery policy of Russia – the problem of vertical power structure – three-staged administration of non-Russians in Siberia that was specific for the system of local self-administration in the Russian Empire in XIXth-century. Uniqueness of the implemented policy was that the imperial government managed to combine three most important components of the Russian statehood: a) unification of governance of peoples in Siberia b) introduction of ethnic self-administration under customary law c) securing the benefits of the imperial legislation. The effectiveness of the administration system was proved by the fact that during 90 years Buryats within their competence in compliance with Russian laws dealt with administrative, economic, judicial matters in order to develop public education, healthcare, social policy and charity by supervisory authority. To meet objective conditions of Russian reality the government was unified and the volost administration was established.