This paper analyzes the mechanisms of development of local government in national members of Eastern Siberia during the first post-Soviet decade. The author studies the issue of creating legal framework for local government at federal and regional levels. Special attention is paid to various forms of activity of territorial public self-government that proved to be effective in the Republics of Buryatia and Khakasia in 1990s.

The purpose of the article is to study the development of local self-government on the basis of city councils of the autonomous republics of Eastern Siberia in 1990s. Laws and regulations as well as scientific articles published in collections of scientific articles were used when studying the issue. Information taken from national («Rossiyskaya Gazeta»), republican («Buryatia», «Bulletin of Khakasia», «True Buryatia», «Tyva the truth», «Khakasia») and local periodicals («Abakan», «Sayan statements», «Chernogorsk») served as a source base. Principles of historicism and scientific objectivity are the methodological basis of the work.

The analysis of local government in autonomous republics of Eastern Siberia – Buryatia, Tyva and Khakasia – in terms of political and socio-economic transformation of the society in the first post-Soviet decade is done.