The Ministry of Internal Affairs was given the task of organising the first general census. Pyotr Semyonov, Vice Chairman of the Main Census Commission, was specifically involved in the preparations.

A huge amount of work had to be carried out within two years. One incident exemplifies the challenges that the census organizers faced: N.O. Osipov, Chief of the Statistical Department at the Main Directorate for Unassessed Taxes and State-Managed Sale of Spirit Beverages, wrote that the plan of Saint Petersburg that he received for purposes of the census did not include six recently built streets, which had to be drawn by hand.

The census date was set on 28 January for particular reasons. The date was not close to any national holidays, and the January cold would force people to stay at home.

However, in Chukotka, the remotest region of the country, a census in the full sense of this word was not conducted in 1897, it was virtually impossible to get this region. So in this case we had to rely on data provided by the governor.

«Famous census takers»

The method of conducting the census was somewhat different from the modern one: census forms were filled in advance, and they were amended on the census day if there had been any changes in the household. In the countryside census forms were completed by census takers, and in towns or cities by the house owners (if they were literate). Among the census takers there were many famous members of Russian society, who believed that it was their duty to help in conducting the census. The writer Anton Chekhov, who already had experience as a census taker, worked in the 4th sector of Serpukhov District in the Moscow Governorate. Nearly the entire family of Pyotr Semyonov, including Semyonov himself, worked on the population census of Vasilyevsky Island in Saint Petersburg.

«A census form for Nicholas II.»

The most precious artifact of the 1897 census is the form filled out by Tsar Nicholas II (a general census had to include the Tsar). In the column "Occupation" Nicholas wrote "The Owner of the Russian Land", and in the column "Secondary occupation" he wrote "Landowner".

The most advanced computing machines of the time were used to process the census data, speeding up what would otherwise have been an almost endless task. The census results were published in 1899-1905, in the form of 119 books on the governorates and regions of Russia.