Bibliograph

Russian criminal tattoo encyclopaedia, drawings and foreword, Danzig Baldaev ; photography, Sergei Vasiliev ; introduction, Alexei Plutser-Sarno

Type

Label

Russian criminal tattoo encyclopaedia, drawings and foreword, Danzig Baldaev ; photography, Sergei Vasiliev ; introduction, Alexei Plutser-Sarno

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Russian criminal tattoo encyclopaedia

Nature of contents

bibliographycatalogs

Oclc number

390731871

Responsibility statement

drawings and foreword, Danzig Baldaev ; photography, Sergei Vasiliev ; introduction, Alexei Plutser-Sarno

Summary

The photographs, drawings and texts published in this book are part of a collection of more than 3,000 tattoos accumulated over a lifetime by a prison attendant named Danzig Baldaev. Tattoos were his gateway into a secret world in which he acted as ethnographer, recording the rituals of a closed society. The icons and tribal languages he documented are artful, distasteful, sexually explicit and sometimes just strange, reflecting as they do the lives and traditions of Russian convicts. Skulls, swastikas, harems of naked women, a smiling Al Capone, medieval knights in armor, daggers sheathed in blood, benign images of Christ, sweet-faced mothers and their babies, armies of tanks and a horned Lenin: these are the signs by which the people of this hidden world mark and identify themselves. With a foreword by Danzig Baldaev, and an introduction by Alexei Plutser-Sarno, exploring the symbolism of the Russian criminal tattoo. --, Provided by publisher

Classification