[citation needed] After the collapse of the Soviet Union, some intellectuals and government officials in the oblast openly discussed the region separating from Russia.
In the mid-1990s, Yuri Matochkin, the oblast's first post-Soviet governor, demanded a special relationship with the EU and threatened a referendum on secession, abetting fears in Moscow about the centrifugal forces of separatism.
[2] From October 2009 to January 2010 several demonstrations took place in the oblast, initially against a significant increase with retroactive application of the tax on vehicles imported from the European Union, thus threatening local business.
But after the second demonstration the demands extended to the resignation of Governor Georgy Boos and of the United Russia members of the regional council.
Despite the first protest, the Kaliningrad regional Duma adopted a decision to raise the vehicle tax by an average of 25 percent, but rescinded on 28 January 2010.
The leader of the political coalition of the opposition, Konstantin Doroshok, a businessman mostly involved in importing cars, retreated from the movement on February 2.
), Andrei Nyrko, but also independent deputy Solomon Ginzburg, openly stated in interviews that Doroshok either had been bought or had been brought under pressure by the FSB.
In 2023, members of the Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum organized an online independence referendum for some of the regions of Russia, the data, however, cannot be fully trusted as the actual numbers are not publicly released.