Russian Criminal Tattoo
This pioneering book offers a rare and unsettling look into the secret world of Russian criminal tattoos. Compiled over a lifetime by prison attendant Danzig Baldaev, the photographs, drawings and texts within these pages reveal an elaborate coded language – one that conveys the stories, rituals and traditions of an isolated subculture.
Skulls, swastikas, religious iconography, naked female forms – these are the symbols by which Russian convicts mark and identify themselves. The imagery is at once artful, disturbing and strange, reflecting the lives and tribulations of those existing on society’s fringes.
As an ethnographer embedded within this hidden community, Baldaev provides unparalleled access, with each tattoo serving as a gateway into the lives, crimes and ideologies of his subjects. From benign depictions of mothers and babies to graphic depictions of violence, the visual tapestry he documents is both compelling and chilling.
With a foreword by Baldaev himself and an introduction exploring the symbolism at play, this volume presents a gripping, unfiltered glimpse into a closed-off realm. For those with a fascination for tattoo culture, criminal history or the dark recesses of the human experience, Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume I is an essential, if unsettling, read.
