With environmental complaints to the government going unanswered, Yablokov and other activists linked to Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Committee hatched a plan. They decided to use a little-known 1995 law to attempt to force the government to consult the public via a referendum. Success would be a first for Russia and the beginning of what could Putin's first major setback. Under the referendum law, environmentalists had 90 days to collect two million signatures on a petition in at least 60 of Russia's 89 regions. The work had to be done by individuals without financial support from any of the groups concerned.
Communication is difficult in Russia.
But there is enormous worry now about the government's intentions. Thousands of campaigners got involved in Moscow, St. Petersburg and all the way across Russia to Vladivostok. By mid-October, more than 3 million names were on the referendum petition, although more than 500,000 were removed from the final petition submitted to the Russian Electoral Commission. Several previous petitions were rejected by the commission after signatures were challenged. With months of waiting and rigorous procedural hurdles ahead, serious worries began blunting organizers' confidence soon after the signatures were submitted to the commission at the end of October.