Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume II
A deeper dive into the Baldaev archive—previously unpublished drawings and photographs that document the coded language of Russian prison tattoos.
Volume II is the essential companion to the first Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia, expanding the archive with previously unpublished drawings and photographs from Danzig Baldaev and Sergei Vasiliev.
Baldaev spent decades working as a guard at St Petersburg’s Kresty Prison, documenting over 3,000 tattoos and the meanings embedded in their symbols—status, biography, warnings, and identity—etched across every part of the body.
This volume reads like a passport into a closed visual culture: political satire, religion, folklore, violence, and dark humor—messages literally tangled in barbed wire—captured as both social record and intense visual reference.
Introduction by Anne Applebaum (Pulitzer Prize–winning historian).
Why this belongs in your library
- New / unseen material from the Baldaev + Vasiliev archives
- One of the strongest sources for symbol-heavy tattoo storytelling
- A landmark documentation of a rapidly disappearing subculture
Contains graphic, politically charged, and sexually explicit imagery, including hate/extremist symbols, presented as historical documentation.
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