This article considers the history of the unrealised project of the establishment of “free mining towns” in Russia (in the Urals) in the first half of the nineteenth century. Only free people were to live and work in such towns. In 1802, the outstanding mining figure A. S. Yartsov filed a note addressed to Emperor Alexander I, in which he proposed several measures to improve the domestic mining industry. The creation of mining towns inspired by European Bergstдdte was one of these measures. A special committee on the reform of the mining part was established under the influence of Yartsov’s note. In 1804, the French architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux published a treatise L’Architecture considérée sous le rapport de l’art, des mœurs et de la legislation (Architecture Considered in Relation to Art, Morals, and Legislation) in Paris. The work was preceded by a dedication to the Russian emperor. The project of the ideal mining city of Chaux was presented in the publication. With the help of architectural forms, Ledoux dreamed of creating an ideal environment for the moral development of people. Could the French architect have known that at the very same time in St Petersburg work was being carried out for a legal justification of the establishment of “free cities” in Russia, a country where serfdom was still a reality? This assumption does not look improbable. A special committee prepared a draft of new mining legislation, which was approved by Alexander I on July 13, 1806. Ekaterinburg received the status of a mining city on May 1, 1807. However, afterwards the emperor lost interest in liberal projects. Ekaterinburg remained the only mining city in Russia. The content of the concept of a “free mining city” also changed: the dream of free labour was replaced by the idea of independence of such a city from the governor’s power.