{"product_id":"russian-criminal-tattoo-encyclopaedia-volume-i","title":"Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume I","description":"Condition: BRAND NEW\u003cbr\u003eISBN: 9780955862076\u003cbr\u003eYear: 2009\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: FUEL Design \u0026amp; Publishing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDescription:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A rare and astonishing book, a glimpse of a deeply secretive world that has taken the author a lifetime to penetrate. It reveals more graphically than any Gulag history the unreformed horror of Russia: the lack of law, the rule of violence, the brutality, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. And yet it is filled with a poignance and a sense of personal tragedy that brought tears to my eyes.'\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003ci\u003eThe Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe photographs, drawings and texts published in this book are part of a collection of more than 3,000 tattoos accumulated over a lifetime by prison attendant Danzig Baldaev. Tattoos were his gateway into a secret world in which he acted as ethnographer, recording the rituals of a closed society.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSkulls, swastikas, harems of naked women, a smiling Al Capone, medieval knights in armour, 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.","brand":"RANDOM HOUSE","offers":[{"title":"Default","offer_id":44522677174361,"sku":"PR913959","price":84.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/2551\/5502\/files\/image_TIBFZ6V5E7ZM.jpg?v=1786633810","url":"https:\/\/smartfox.co.nz\/products\/russian-criminal-tattoo-encyclopaedia-volume-i","provider":"SmartfoxNZ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}