The article which is based primarily on materials that are brought in scientific turnover for the first time is devoted deals with one phase of Saint-Petersburg (nowadays Russian) Academy of sciences which still remains practically unstudied. At the end of the 19th century and in the early 20th century an attempt of a major scale reform of this oldest scientific establishment of the country was undertaken. K.K.Romanov, the president of the Academy, initiated the reform in 1890. The essence of the reform consisted in replacement of the Academy’s obsolete charter of 1836 with a new legal act which could invigorate activities of the 'primary scientific estate'. It was planned to represent new disciplines in the Academy, increase number of «chairs» and scales of the budget financing, make the election process more democratic etc. The document was being elaborated for more than 12 years and only in 1912 the single result was achieved: the Academy got a new budget but it was obtained only at the expense of scholars' refusal to proceed with a radical reorganization of the Academy.