The concept of "smart city" is one of the most popular in the practice of urban management around the world. It has been adopted at the federal management level as one of the leading ones for Russian cities. The problem lies in the objectification of the concept in the strategies of socio-economic development of cities. In addition, each concept, including the "smart city" has a variety of implementation models. There are technocratic (rating), triple, quarter spiral, etc. The purpose of the work is to determine the types of models for the implementation of the "smart city" concept in the strategies of socio-economic development of large Russian cities. The focus of the research is the model of the quarter spiral, which received its author's continuation and refinement as a subject through the strengthening of the nature of its sociality. To achieve this goal, a content analysis of the strategies of socio-economic development of cities in 20 major cities of the Russian Federation was carried out. As a result, it can be argued that the concept of a "smart city" is not represented in all strategies of large cities. Where it is stated, the prevailing type of model for the implementation of the concept is the triple helix model (consumer model). The presence of elements of the subject model in strategic documents seems promising.