russian criminal tattoo encyclopedia
courtesy of spike jonze's blog
i can’t take the credit for finding this on my own. i saw it on spike jonze’s blog www.weloveyouso.com.
essentially if you have any of these tattoos on your body you’re pretty badass. you’re probably also in the middle of pulling up in a black lauda 1984 (not likely) or (most likely) a black e350 mercedes, cigarette in your mouth and an imported suit hanging quite slickly off your tall, slim yet muscular build. you take your cigarette and put it out on your tongue and let it gracefully fall on the ground. you probably have a gun in your other hand and are about to kill someone who pissed off your boss. basically, you’re in the motherfuckin russian mafia and have your whole life story mapped out on your body. ink you acquired in prison.
basically no one would fuck with you. unless they don’t want to live.
“Skulls, daggers, medieval knights, babies, a horned Lenin and a grinning Al Capone are some of the images that populate the world of Kresty prisoners. Nihilistic and weird and occasionally beautiful, the tattoos form a private language that Baldayev, by virtue of his collection, has given us a glimpse of.”
-Spike Jonze
