Due to the successful centralization efforts of the beginning of the 2000s, Russian governors almost lost their domestic as well as international agency. However, there is still a considerable variation in their international activity levels that remains unexplained. Employing an original dataset on the international activity of Russian governors from 2005 to 2015, the article investigates what effect regional political regime, ethnicity and other factors have on the level of gubernatorial participation in paradiplomacy. The level of regional democracy, the absence of ties between governors and regional elites, and the ethnic distinctiveness of a region are all positively associated with the engagement in international activity. The article demonstrates that regional authorities turn to paradiplomacy when faced with pressures for resource attraction and ethnic identity construction, even under the conditions of a relatively centralized authoritarian state.