This paper presents results of the Russian-Dutch project on 3D cadastre modelling in the Russian Federation. The purpose of the project was to assess added value of a 3D cadastre for better registration and recording of (rights regarding) multilevel complex buildings and constructions, and subsurface networks such as gas pipelines. The project included prototype development and a pilot with use cases selected in Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhegorodskaya Oblast. Experts from Rosreestr (Russian Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography) central and local offices, cadastral chambers, technical inventory offices and cadastral engineers participated in the pilot. The pilot was evaluated based on a structured questionnaire, with topics organised in various categories: general, legal aspects, spatial aspects, information dissemination aspects, etc. The pilot was conducted after the completion of the design of a 3D cadastral model (ISO FDIS 19152, LADM based) and the development of a web-based prototype for 3D cadastral visualisation. The prototype consists of a 3D viewer that shows the cadastral objects in 3D space, and permits to make selections on e.g. cadastral number, name of the owner, number of rooms etc. The 3D cadastre 'investigation project' in the Russian Federation ended in July 2012. Based on the positive experiences from the project in general and the pilot in specific, recommendations for the future introduction of 3D cadastre have been formulated, including improvements in the Russian legal framework and the organisation of 3D cadastre. The next step can be to apply the recommendations to an operational real-world situation. For the technical preconditions a production environment with more functionality should be developed, including: a validator, DBMS data storage, on-the fly creation of the 3D objects from a data stream obtained from the database, and an extension of the 3D viewer to show also neighbour units in 3D.