In this paper we investigate the role that corporate boards play in an environment of highly concentrated ownership and weak institutional environment using unique data from a survey of board members in Russian firms. In firms with high ownership concentration the board of directors may be just a formal attribute serving to rubber-stamp the decisions taken by a controlling shareholder. Even the presence of independent directors is often not sufficient for the board to play an active role in corporate decision making. We take a novel approach to constructing a proxy for the board activism. The survey inquired about the frequency of discussions and intensity of the debates on the agenda items during the boards meetings. This allows us to measure whether the board is active in performing its duties. We find that this activity is higher when the controlling owner (often founder) is not any longer managing the firm himself. We also find that board activism during meetings is positively related to the presence of independent directors. We show that board activism is positively related to the firm performance while the presence of independent directors is not.