Saving the last great wilderness: A case study of environmental movements in the Baikal, Primorskii and Khabarovsk regions of the Russian Federation; potential impact on the development of a democratic political system

The objective of this work was to analyze the emergence of environmental activism in the late 1960s, its evolution into a social movement and its contribution to the development of a democratic system in the post-Soviet era. Particular emphasis was placed upon the examination of the role of the Soviet intelligentsia in raising environmental consciousness around the issue of the preservation of Siberia's Lake Baikal, the contribution of glasnost to the formation of environmental organizations as articulators of public interest and as measures of the existence of a Russian civil society. Environmentalism has shown that the desire for personal autonomy, which has long existed within the shadows of an authoritarian and paternalistic political order, is still an intrinsic part of the Russian character. Upon this foundation a democratic system can be built and the future course of the Russian people, the state, and the rest of the Eurasia altered significantly.