Alla Pugacheva fan festival in Moscow canceled after civic activist files complaint with prosecutors

A fan festival dedicated to Alla Pugacheva has been canceled after Vitaly Borodin, head of the Federal Project on Security and Anti-Corruption, filed a complaint seeking to ban it, the Russian business daily Kommersant reported, citing the event’s producer, Andrei Krasnobaev.

“The festival was indeed canceled this year due to pressure from civic activists. Ask Borodin how that happened. We haven’t come up with an alternative yet,” Krasnobaev said.

The art festival was organized by a community of Pugacheva’s fans with the goal of uniting members of the fan movement into a single interest group and promoting the singer’s work, according to the festival’s social media pages.

The festival had been held annually since 2022 on the singer’s birthday, April 15. In 2026, it was scheduled to take place at a club called Ogorod.

In mid-March, Borodin told the Russian news website Gazeta.ru that he had petitioned the Prosecutor General’s Office to ban the festival. Fans and ill-wishers alike might show up and start fighting, he said, adding that “Pugacheva is like a red rag.”

Vitaly Borodin regularly files complaints with the Prosecutor General’s Office demanding that performers and journalists be investigated and held accountable. In the fall of 2025, he said he had secured an arrest warrant for journalists from the independent Russian broadcaster TV Rain and called for Alla Pugacheva to face charges over an interview she gave to journalist Katerina Gordeeva, saying that the singer was “working the agenda of Western handlers.”