Russian Criminal Tattoo Archive

Highlights from Fuel's collection of authentic material on Russian criminal subculture. The book features ink-on-paper drawings by Danzig Baldaev, photographic albums by Arkady Bronnikov, and prisoner portraits by Sergei Vasiliev. The selection is contextualized with insights from Mark Vincent and Alison Nordström, experts in the Soviet Gulag and photography, respectively. The volume provides a glimpse into the meticulous depictions of tattoos, intimate photographs of inmates, and collections of police-used photographs, offering a unique perspective on the closed criminal society and the methods used to document it.