
Russia's leading expert on criminal tattoos - rvikmanis
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/features/f0195-the-man-who-reads-the-criminal-mind-by-analysing-convicts-tattoos/
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romanhn
_Bronnikov 's elder son Vladimir ... also served in police. After 17 years of
service, he was badly beaten undertaking his duties and his spine was broken.
He now walks on crutches. His younger son Evgeniy was beaten to death in the
street when trying to save a girl from rapists._

What a dark reminder that in society's underbelly convict tattoos are a sign
of prestige and no good deed goes unpunished. No wonder that in cultures with
"well-developed" underbellies, altruistic behavior tends to be less prevalent.

~~~
Dr_tldr
Yes, when I see NKVD/KGB/FSB officers in full uniform, I think of nothing but
good deeds and altruism.

..the criminal underbelly of a society is usually a small-scale reaction to
the crimes officially sanctioned by the state.

~~~
comrh
That think that's giving too much credit to the criminal, organized crime all
seems to come down to greed.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Organized crime all comes down to grey zones.

Areas where regular business forced not to go: prostitution, drugs, arms
trade, shark loans.

There are perhaps places where all the economy is one large grey zone, but
other than that, regular business (which does indeed come down to greed) out-
competes organized crime.

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m0nastic
A few years back I picked up "Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia Volumes
1-3" on Amazon[1] for something I was working on and they are fascinating.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Criminal-Tattoo-
Encyclopaedia-...](http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Criminal-Tattoo-
Encyclopaedia-I/dp/0955862078/)

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gtvwill
The differences between Russian tattoo meanings and Australian is quite
interesting. Especially the mention that for Russians the spider is a
reference to drug users, while it is known in Australia to have been
associated with pedophiles.

~~~
mschuster91
> while it is known in Australia to have been associated with pedophiles.

How that? If I were to sit in jail for molesting kids, the last thing I'd want
is others to know about this. Pedophiles (and rapists) are the bottom in
prison hierarchy.

~~~
pandaman
I don't know about Australia but in Russia they don't ask you what you want.
Such markings exist to warn others and there is usually a death penalty for
removing/defacing one.

~~~
gtvwill
Yeah in Australia the markings of a spider or "rock spider" are usually
inflicted upon paedophiles forcefully. I'm not sure of the penalty but as a
subgroup of criminals within Australian jails paedophiles have been known to
have a hard time.

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rdtsc
I just watched Deadly Code (Siberian Education)
[http://www.netflix.com/search/deadly?jbv=70302183&jbp=1&jbr=...](http://www.netflix.com/search/deadly?jbv=70302183&jbp=1&jbr=0)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1697064/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1697064/)
with John Malkovich . The movie depicts some of the "thief" culture aspect.

More about the phenomenon in general:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thief_in_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thief_in_law)

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JVMsOfGor
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the movie Eastern Promises yet.

[http://easternpromises.livejournal.com/47809.html?thread=111...](http://easternpromises.livejournal.com/47809.html?thread=111041)

~~~
madengr
Was just about to. I read VM hung out with Russian ex-cons for several months
to work on the role.

~~~
msingle
In one interview Viggo mentions how he went to a Russian restaurant during a
film break while he still had the tattoos on. Everyone in the restaurant
stopped talking when he came in, when he realized why, he decided he shouldn't
go off set while still in makeup.

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rvikmanis
Interestingly enough, this man served in the army together with Kim Il-Sung
and Peng Dehuai.

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whatgoodisaroad
An excellent Russian documentary on this topic is "The Mark of Cain" [0]. It
goes into a lot of detail and interviews with prisoners, as well as a good
portion of the film focused on the tattoo traditions in women's prisons.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark_of_Cain_(2000_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mark_of_Cain_\(2000_film\))

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petke
Trying to learn more about Russian prison tattoos some time ago. There is lots
of contradictory and vague descriptions on the meanings and symbolism of
Russian prison tattoos on the web. At times it seems a lot like tea leaf
reading. The tattoos seem to mean anything you want.

I wonder if there really is such a thing as a commonly understood tattoo
language that criminals know and enforce. Maybe in soviet times, but today?

~~~
ProAm
I think location plays a large role in their 'meaning'/importance

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lawrencewu
Reminds me of this passage from Infinite Jest, detailing Tiny Ewell's
obsession with tattoos:
[https://books.google.ca/books?id=Nhe2yvx6hP8C&lpg=PT148&ots=...](https://books.google.ca/books?id=Nhe2yvx6hP8C&lpg=PT148&ots=K3KtTeX6lc&dq=tiny%20ewell%20tattoos&pg=PT146#v=onepage&q&f=false)

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mattress
Fascinating, but aren't tattoos a big part of prison/gang culture in other
countries besides Russia/USSR?

~~~
rdtsc
The difference it that in Russia/USSR it was taken more seriously, became more
formalized, by now has about 100 years of tradition behind it.

In US I would imagine, for example, tattoos would be more gang centered and
would have meaning within one gang, but not a general unified set of symbols
or meanings that everyone accepts. Like say "cross on the left shoulder means
abandoned by parents" or something like that.

~~~
trhway
>The difference it that in Russia/USSR it was taken more seriously, became
more formalized

in particular many tattoos serve the role similar to military insignia and one
just isn't allowed (i.e. would be punished severely) to wear symbols or the
number of it which doesn't match his/her position in the hierarchy (which is
pretty firmly enforced multi-level developed one in the Russian prisons) or
his/her history like number of prison terms served and severity of the crimes
committed.

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nocture
Really interesting article - one thing that caught my eye though, was the
Looney Tunes wallpaper in their kitchen. That seems like an odd thing to find
deep inside Russia.

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Myrmornis
Why's this newspaper published in English?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
So it can be read by a wider audience? There are many English-language local
papers.

~~~
Myrmornis
There are, I know, but I'd mainly associated them with parts of the world
where English is second language. I'd assumed the common language was Russian
across Siberia with not much English but I guess it's more complex.

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darksim905
Absolutely fascinating. I wonder if he consults for films as well.

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MidoAssran
Very Interesting!

