Kurzbeschreibung

This final volume of previously unpublished drawings and photographs completes the "Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopadia" trilogy. Danzig Baldaevs unparalleled ethnographic achievement, documenting over 3, 000 tattoo drawings, was made during a lifetime working as a prison guard. The motifs depicted represent the uncensored lives of the criminal classes, ranging from violence and pornography to politics and alcohol. In this title, a medieval knight is surrounded by the severed heads of his enemies, a naked woman simultaneously services a man and two dwarfs, a crying President Gorbachev grips a human bone between sabre-like fangs, a group of angels drinks vodka with God on a cloud, and the meanings of these arresting images are explained to the uninitiated eye. Accompanied by graphic photographs showing the grim reality of the Russian prison system and some of the alarming characters that inhabit it, the illustrated criminals of Russia tell the tale of their closed society.

Klappentext

This is the final volume of drawings and photographs from Danzig Baldaev and Sergei Vasiliev, which completes the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia trilogy.

Danzig Baldaev documented over three thousand tattoos during a lifetime working as a prison guard. His recording of this esoteric world was reported to the KGB who unexpectedly supported him, realising the importance of being able to establish facts about convicts by reading the images on their bodies. The motifs depicted represent the uncensored lives of the criminal classes, ranging from violence and pornography to politics and alcohol. The illustrated criminals of Russia tell the tale of their closed society.

With an introduction by historian Alexander Sidorov, exploring the origin of Russian criminal tattoos and their meaning today.