Narodny Sobor (People’s Council) is a Russian far-right social movement based on the ideas of national patriotism and orthodoxy and dedicated to the protection of public morals and traditional family values. The aim of the People’s Council is to transform Russia on the basis of the so-called “traditional spiritual and moral values of the Russian civilisation”. The People’s Council opposes Russophobia, uncontrolled immigration, totalitarian sects, lawlessness, corruption, gay pride parades and any other actions aimed at undermining the country, its spiritual and moral values and culture.
The leader of the Narodnyi Sobor movement is a former RNE member Oleg Kassin.
The People’s Council was founded on 8 October 2005. The core of the “People’s Council” is made up of a number of members of the network commonwealth – leaders of well-known and most active Orthodox patriotic organizations, with a number of specific successfully solved tasks to protect the national interests of Russia. “Narodny Sobor” is a structured organization with an extensive regional network. There are branches and groups of supporters of the People’s Council in almost 50 regions of Russia. The movement is a coalition of more than 200 different public associations.
The ‘People’s Council’ organisation takes part in ‘Russian marches’ and became famous for its lawsuit against the former director of the Sakharov Museum, Yuri Samodurov, and the former head of the Contemporary Art Department of the Tretyakov Gallery, Andrei Erofeev, for the exhibition ‘Forbidden Art 2006’. The trial lasted three years, resulting in the Tagansky Court sentencing the artists under Article “inciting religious hatred or enmity” to a fine of 350,000 rubles, although the prosecutor’s office demanded three years in prison.
In 2003, National Council activists trashed the Sakharov Center after another exhibition, Beware of Religion, and in May 2012 they [picketed](https://expert.ru/russian_reporter/2013/13/tolko-nravstvennost-tolko-hardkor/) Marat Gelman’s exhibition Motherland, also for offending religious feelings. Last fall, Anatoly Artyukh, head of the St. Petersburg branch of the People’s Council, sued the Wimm-Bill-Dann company over the packaging of Veseloe Molokochniki (Merry Milkman), claiming that the six-colored rainbow behind the mustachioed milkman promoted homosexuality. Also the People’s Council, which opposes the promotion of homosexuality has become famous for, among other things, its protests against pro-LGBT [Madonna concerts in 2012](https://lenta.ru/news/2012/08/15/mdna/).
