Symbolism in Russian criminal tattoos

Abstract

In my theses I am going to be looking into tattoos of the one of the worlds most dangerous and complex subcultures which is also known as Vor v Zakone, and is the biggest and oldest Russian criminal group. I am going to be concentrating on the way these tattoos have evolved over the history and I will explore what these symbols mean not just to someone who is a part of this complex group but also from a point of view of a common person. In the same time I am going to look at them from a perspective of the theory of the symbolism, which in this case is very different from tattoos in other cultures.This subject gets even more interesting because of the lack of the information about it. But there are divine books, which are remarkable because of their great value; also films had been made referencing this complicated subculture. From a point of view of a graphic designer where we tend to look at things differently as they may seem at first, I will look into not only the visual presentation, which is considered the most common way of looking at tattoos, but also, the historical, cultural and religious aspects, which play a very big role in development and meaning of Russian criminal tattoos.