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Russian Criminal Tattoos
During the 20th century in the Soviet Union, Russian criminal and prison communities maintained a culture of using tattoos to indicate members' criminal career and ranking. Specifically among those imprisoned under the Gulag system of the Soviet era, the tattoos served to differentiate a criminal leader or thief in law from a political prisoner. The practice grew in the 1930s, peaking in the 1950s and declining in popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. Origins The branding of criminals was practised in Russia long before tattooing was customary, and was banned in 1863. In the 19th century, a "pricked" cross on the left hand was often used to identify deserters from the army, and up until 1846, criminals sentenced to hard labour were branded "BOP" (''thief''), the letters on the forehead and cheeks. Brands were also applied to the shoulder blade and the right forearm, in three categories; "CK" for ''Ssylno-Katorzhny'' ( hard labour convict), "SP" for ''Ssylno-Poselenets'' (hard labo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tattooed Former Soviet Prisoner
A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing processes and techniques, including hand-tapped traditional tattoos and modern tattoo machines. The history of tattooing goes back to Neolithic times, practiced across the globe by many cultures, and the symbolism and impact of tattoos varies in different places and cultures. Tattoos may be decorative (with no specific meaning), symbolic (with a specific meaning to the wearer), or pictorial (a depiction of a specific person or item). Many tattoos serve as rites of passage, marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, marks of fertility, pledges of love, amulets and talismans, protection, and as punishment, like the marks of outcasts, slaves and convicts. Extensive decorative tattooing has also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism. Born to an upper-middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's 1887 execution. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empire's Tsarist government, he devoted the following years to a law degree. He moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior Marxist activist. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye in Siberia for three years, where he married ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Culture
Russian culture (russian: Культура России, Kul'tura Rossii) has been formed by the nation's history, its geographical location and its vast expanse, religious and social traditions, and Western culture, Western influence. Russian Russian literature, writers and Russian philosophy, philosophers have played an important role in the development of European thought. The Russians have also greatly influenced classical music, Russian ballet, ballet, Sport in Russia, sport, List of Russian artists, painting, and Cinema of Russia, cinema. The nation has also made pioneering contributions to Timeline of Russian inventions and technology records, science and technology and space exploration. History Language and literature Russia's 160 ethnic groups speak some 100 languages. According to the 2002 census, 142.6 million people speak Russian language, Russian, followed by Tatar language, Tatar with 5.3 million and Ukrainian language, Ukrainian with 1.8 mil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tattooing
A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several Process of tattooing, tattooing processes and techniques, including hand-tapped traditional tattoos and modern tattoo machines. The history of tattooing goes back to Neolithic times, practiced across the globe by many cultures, and the symbolism and impact of tattoos varies in different places and cultures. Tattoos may be decorative (with no specific meaning), symbolic (with a specific meaning to the wearer), or pictorial (a depiction of a specific person or item). Many tattoos serve as Rite of passage, rites of passage, marks of status and rank, symbols of religious and spiritual devotion, decorations for bravery, marks of fertility, pledges of love, amulets and talismans, protection, and as punishment, like the marks of outcasts, slaves and convicts. E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thief In Law
A “thief in law” (Russian: вор в зако́не, Georgian: კანონიერი ქურდი), in the Soviet Union, the post-Soviet states, and respective diasporas abroad is a specifically granted formal and special status of "criminal authority" (russian: криминальный авторитет, translit=kriminalny avtoritet), a professional criminal who enjoys an elite position among other notified mobsters within the organized crime and correctional facility environments and employs informal authority over its lower-status members. The phrase "Thieves in Law" (otherwise known as "Vory") is a calque of the Russian slang phrase "вор в зако́не," literally translated as "a Thief in position ofthe law." The phrase has two distrinct meanings in Russian: "A legalized thief" and "A thief who is the Law." Note that "Vor" came to mean 'thief' no earlier then in the 18th century, before which it simply meant "criminal" (and the word retains this meanin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Mafia
Russian organized crime or Russian mafia (, ), otherwise known as Bratva (), is a collective of various organized crime elements originating in the former Soviet Union. The initialism OPG is Organized Criminal (''prestupnaya'' in Russian) Group, used to refer to any of the Russian mafia groups, sometimes modified with a specific name, e.g. Orekhovskaya OPG. Sometimes the initialism is translated and OCG is used. Organized crime in Russia began in the Russian Empire, but it was not until the Soviet era that '' vory v zakone'' ("thieves-in-law") emerged as leaders of prison groups in forced labor camps, and their honor code became more defined. With the end of World War II, the death of Joseph Stalin, and the fall of the Soviet Union, more gangs emerged in a flourishing black market, exploiting the unstable governments of the former Republics. Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI, said that the Russian mafia posed the greatest threat to U.S. national security in the mid- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
