In the 2000s, political parties in Russia became major actors on electoral and parliamentary arenas. However the party competition virtually disappeared: all parties became effectively controlled by the Kremlin and turned out to be included into formal and informal hierarchy of Russia’s government. While the major opposition parties were about to extinct, the party of power, United Russia, overwhelmingly dominated the landscape of party politics. The article is focused on analysis of the formation of the new party system in Russia in the 2000s, with special emphasis laid on the role of political elites and institutional engineering in the building of dominant party and centralized control.