Russian Prison Knee Tattoos
The human iconography of the russian underground.
Russian prison knee tattoos. Thieves stars photo history channel youtube depending on the location on the body the stars convey a prisoner s status. In russian criminal jargon or fenya феня a full set of tattoos is known as frak s ordenami a tailcoat with decorations. The tattoos show a service record of achievements and failures prison sentences and the type of work a criminal does. See more ideas about russian prison tattoos prison tattoos criminal tattoo.
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. Russian convicts use body language of their very own prison tattoos spell out lives of crime and establish the hierarchy of inmates. All these tattoos are indicaters of the criminal life style and rules in russian prison underworld circles but the rules are more or less the same in all underworld prison communities such as no rapists child molesters granny bashers etc you get slashed to pieces in english jails for these crimes also for informing we sort are own problems out and is the same in jails the world over after all. Example of traditional prison tattoo with medal motif showing.
Here are 12 russian prison tattoos and their perceived meanings. Intricate coded prison tattoos from the 1970s 90s. The visual encyclopedia of russian prison tattoos we spoke to the publisher of a book about soviet prison ink about what tattoos would mark you as a thief a homosexual or a high ranking criminal. 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.
Codes of authority domination and struggle alix lambert isbn 0 7643 1764 4. Intricate coded prison tattoos from the 1970s 90s.