Democratic Choice Russia (DCR), led by Mr Yeltsin's former acting prime minister Yegor Gaidar, said the idea was inspired by a regional governor who presented Mr Yeltsin with one million signatures opposing the 13-month-old conflict.
St Petersburg residents can sign DCR's petition in local constituencies and at the party's headquarters on Izmailovsky Prospect, 8.
The city newspaper Nevskoye Vremya, two of whose correspondents disappeared in Chechnya last year, has also joined the campaign.
"Those who started this war do not have the courage to stop it," the party said in a statement issued two days after Nizhny Novgorod governor Boris Nemtsov handed Mr Yeltsin the first appeal last Monday.
"People can stop the war. They can force the authorities to take their opinion into consideration," the statement said. "The simplest way to achieve this is to collect millions of signatures demanding an end to the war."
Just two days after printing a form for signatures on the front page of the paper, Nevskoye Vremya political editor Alexander Gorshkov said dozens of responses had been delivered and people were ringing constantly to promise their support.
Mr Gorshkov was pessimistic about the chances of influencing Mr Yeltsin in this way. "Yeltsin doesn't usually listen to the voice of the people and even if he does, it will be for his own political ends," he said.
The collection of millions of signatures would not legally force Mr Yeltsin to change policy but would increase pressure on him over Chechnya before the election on June 16.
St Petersburg Mayor Anatoly Sobchak asked the city's Legislative Assembly to join him in a resolution opposing the use of St. Petersburg funds to pay for the restoration of Chechnya last Wednesday.
Mr Sobchak's declaration to the President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian government states that: "Spending taxpayers money on restoration that will be the target of military action and terrorists appears mindless." (Reuter, SPP)