The article discusses the specifics of the resettlement movement on the western outskirts of the Russian Empire in the 1890s. During this period, the authorities have not yet decided on their attitude to the resettlement issue. The main attention is paid to the attitude of the central and local authorities to the mass peasant campaigns for submitting applications for resettlement - which threatened to weaken the «Russian element» in the region and economic problems. On the basis of archival documents from the funds of the Lithuanian State Historical Archives (LVIA) and Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA), it was shown that the administrative obstacles that were put in his way were caused not so much by «serfdom» considerations as by the unpreparedness of local authorities in new territories and concern for the fate of «trusting» and «half-conscious» migrants.