Cultural heritage preservation became one of the key topics of public discussion in the Late Russian Empire. These discussions led to the establishment of several initiatives for protecting Russian cultural heritage. This article demonstrates that such initiatives developed a variety of different strategies for heritage-making. Examples from the Society of the Protection and Preservation of the Monuments of Art and Antiquity in Russia and the Society of the Revival of Artistic Rus’ show that several strategies of heritage-making focusing on cultural heritage preservation were developed simultaneously by different civil groups and helped cultivate the interest of the state authority in the subject, an interest which later became institutionalised under the Soviet regime.