The main forms of interaction of the power institutions and the representatives of the expert community are considered in the article, namely the three models of interaction: a linearly-autonomous model, a model of virtuous reason, and a “model of the prepaid result” developed by the authors. The research included ten expert trips to different Russian regions and about 40 expert interviews with respondents from the expert community, governmental structures, NGOs and mass-media. Four focus-groups were organized in Ekaterinburg, Kazan, Nizhniy Novgorod and Saratov, formed from the same categories as respondents of expert interviews. It is shown that in the contemporary Russia, the activities of numerous expert councils established at governmental agencies of different levels mostly implement the symbolic function of expert knowledge. We explain this by inclusion to this expert council of so called ‘status’ experts with high positions in the hierarchy of ruling bodies of academician institutes or universities. When acting publically, most members of such councils are ready to “play the same game” as the representatives of the regional authorities, hereby confirming the effectiveness of their power and absence of serious unsolved problems in the region. The instrumental function, in turn, is implemented mainly in the form of individual orders for experts placed by the authorities in the framework of the linear autonomous model: firstly, experts autonomously prepare their conclusions and recommendations; secondly, representatives of authorities take their decisions taking into account the received information (also autonomously from the experts).