This question is more complicated than it looks.

The 1897 All Russia Census was not saved the way that American Census records have been saved with the total of census questionnaires still in the archives.

Copies of the 1897 All Russia Census were kept both locally and also by the Central Census Bureau in St. Petersburg.  But the 1897 Russian Census was taken for statistical purposes, and after the data had been analyzed, most of it was destroyed, only ten percent of the records were kept for statistical reference.

Several groups have found and transcribed the remaining ten percent of the records in the local archives (Lithuania, Latvia, and Grodno are the ones that I know about).  Those records are on JewishGen. But other records may be available in other local archives, or, possibly in whatever became of the Central Census Bureau in Imperial Russia.

The 1897 Russian Census is a wonderful resource for the places where the information was preserved, but not finding a family in it may only mean that those records were destroyed.

Peggy Mosinger Freedman