Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Coffee-table book on a fascinating subject, 4 Sep 2007
The first thing that needs to be said about this book is that it is based on material collected for a TV documentary. Hence the book consists mainly of photographs of prisoners and their environment, punctuated with occasional quotes. The quotes come from prisoners - who talk about their lives, their crimes, and their sentences, not just about the meaning of their tattoos - and from Russian criminologists, proudly demonstrating how they have decoded the complex code by which prisoners communicate rank and status. It is these snippets of lives that make this book heart-rending reading (and a world away from Carl de Keyser's glossy, posed portraits in "Zona"!)
A few statistics: 1 in four Russian men has been in prison, the average time spent on remand is 2-3 years (during which remand prisoners share cells with hardened recidivists), the cell space per prisoner in one prison is less than 1 square metre...
A glossy book on such a subject seems incongruous; and Ms Lambert reduces the impact by spreading quotes from a given prisoner over several chapters, seemingly randomly, rathe than letting him or her tell her own story.
For an in depth study of this fascinating subject, explaining in detail the complex language of the Thieves Code, and the mores enforced - where a man must "stand by his tattoos" or remove them - I would unhesitatingly recommend Danzig Baldaev's "Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia". (With the warning, however, that he reords sketches of obscene and racist tattoos which are suspiciously absent from from Ms Lambert's collection!)
However, the valuable contribution that this book makes is in exploring a period of transition. Baldaev's books are based on a collection that he amassed over 50 years' service as a prison guard; Ms Lambert took her photographs in 1998 (although she includes archive pictures from an earlier era). Thus she is recording a period when many young prisoners claim that tattoos no longer have force, whilst the 'old-timers' lament the passing of Thieves' Law, when everyone knew where they stood.
Yet the hierarchical nature of society in a prison cell (containing up to 120 people), where everyone knows everyone else's rank - from the Blat (the profesional criminals, who assign status), down to the Downcast (who sleep under the bunks, and are sexually available to all) - remains.
The other great advantage of this book, is that she allows the prisoners to speak for themselves - rather than relying on their tattoos to speak for them.
Perhaps Ms Lambert has not made the best use of her material, but
it remains a fascinating, and moving record. Furthermore, the tattoos themselves, although often made with the crudest of implements, are frequently hauntingly beautiful.
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by Danzig Baldaev
by Danzig Baldev
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