One of the notable personalities during the reign of the Emperor Nicholas I was Abraham Sergeyevich Norov who occupied the post of the Minister of People’s Education from 1853 to 1858. In domestic historical literature the opinion has been rooted that he was a model of a conservative intellectual, a weak-willed person who fell under the influence of other people. The paper attempts to find out how A. S. Norov was treated by professors at Russian universities who often communicated with him and what they thought about him.