Oh mother, don't expect a nice boy I used to be/ Expect a crook or a thief/The prison quickstands have swallowed me up/ And my life has become an eternal prison.
Eternal prison, a prisoner says. Eternal prison, people say. It is true that no one understands the value of air, space, water, food, freedom more than a prisoner. And if it said by a prisoner in Pre-trial detention centre in Samara then your longing for freedom is nowhere near his. A cell which cannot hold not more than 14 people, is filled in with 22. The air inside is heavy and food supplies minimal making them too vulnerable for them to catch tuberculosis.Whatever the circumstances they might dwell in, their druthers towards the internal and unofficial prison practises remain on top. The rules, the hierarchy, the tattoos.
There are unwritten and absurd rules of the prison which must be followed in order to survive the prison life. One example would be the "downcasts" or the ones who are forced, in most situations, to fulfill the female roles. Another inmate is not allowed to greet them or borrow a cigarette. They live separately, some of them, with the word 'slave' engraved on their faces. They are at the bottom of the jail hierarchy living like a pariah. At the top is the Thief-in-the-law, the godfather who'd go through all the lock-ups with a Jesus on a cross inked on his chest.The next are the Thieves who hold quite authority in the cells. According to the learned criminologist in Russian Prison System, Arkady Brannikov, the tattoos of monasteries, churches, Virgin Mary, spider in a web are the marks of a thief. Sometimes group of criminals who get punished for petty crimes, hooliganism, fights disturbing public order known as Muzhiks exist and hold minimal authority usually more than downcast.
There is yet another classification existing among the prisoners, a broader one though. In there, the prisoners are divided into two groups the Blacks and the Reds. The Blacks hold the Thieves code and the Reds assist the administration.
Apart from this hierarchy, the body tattoos hold or rather used to hold a lot a significance in the Russian prisons. For every kind of criminal, a tattoo could be made. A man inked with a snake around his neck was to be considered a drug addict. Those with beetles were considered to be survivors of the prison life. Around 1930s a lot of criminals wanted to show their dismay towards the Soviet regime and so got imprinted on their bodies tattoos of tiger, epaulettes on shoulders, medals, Nazi symbols, etc. Moreover, if a criminal, sentenced to death, carries the tattoo of Stalin, Lenin and Marx then they would not be shot because they are the tattoos of the leaders. This was the level of significance of tattoos inside the Russian Prison System. And the most, inevitably, curious feature among all of them should be the way tattoos inside the prison were made. A pen would be attached via a guitar string to a mechanical razor and used by the prisoners to ink arms and chests.
The substance which this system used to hold is getting eroded for a very simple fact that after they serve the tenure, they are ashamed of the tattoos. It is the permanence of the tattoos which they have started to fear and not the bars or the the stinking soup they received two times a day.They fear that they will still be, in the eyes of the common people and not the law, criminals. Law and authorities have already been broken but it is "for" the people that they commit crime. These people after getting freedom face difficulty in getting acceptance. Ten years in jail, STILL A DAMN CRIMINAL HE IS.
As Freidrich Nietzshech has said, " Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals."
There are unwritten and absurd rules of the prison which must be followed in order to survive the prison life. One example would be the "downcasts" or the ones who are forced, in most situations, to fulfill the female roles. Another inmate is not allowed to greet them or borrow a cigarette. They live separately, some of them, with the word 'slave' engraved on their faces. They are at the bottom of the jail hierarchy living like a pariah. At the top is the Thief-in-the-law, the godfather who'd go through all the lock-ups with a Jesus on a cross inked on his chest.The next are the Thieves who hold quite authority in the cells. According to the learned criminologist in Russian Prison System, Arkady Brannikov, the tattoos of monasteries, churches, Virgin Mary, spider in a web are the marks of a thief. Sometimes group of criminals who get punished for petty crimes, hooliganism, fights disturbing public order known as Muzhiks exist and hold minimal authority usually more than downcast.
There is yet another classification existing among the prisoners, a broader one though. In there, the prisoners are divided into two groups the Blacks and the Reds. The Blacks hold the Thieves code and the Reds assist the administration.
Apart from this hierarchy, the body tattoos hold or rather used to hold a lot a significance in the Russian prisons. For every kind of criminal, a tattoo could be made. A man inked with a snake around his neck was to be considered a drug addict. Those with beetles were considered to be survivors of the prison life. Around 1930s a lot of criminals wanted to show their dismay towards the Soviet regime and so got imprinted on their bodies tattoos of tiger, epaulettes on shoulders, medals, Nazi symbols, etc. Moreover, if a criminal, sentenced to death, carries the tattoo of Stalin, Lenin and Marx then they would not be shot because they are the tattoos of the leaders. This was the level of significance of tattoos inside the Russian Prison System. And the most, inevitably, curious feature among all of them should be the way tattoos inside the prison were made. A pen would be attached via a guitar string to a mechanical razor and used by the prisoners to ink arms and chests.The substance which this system used to hold is getting eroded for a very simple fact that after they serve the tenure, they are ashamed of the tattoos. It is the permanence of the tattoos which they have started to fear and not the bars or the the stinking soup they received two times a day.They fear that they will still be, in the eyes of the common people and not the law, criminals. Law and authorities have already been broken but it is "for" the people that they commit crime. These people after getting freedom face difficulty in getting acceptance. Ten years in jail, STILL A DAMN CRIMINAL HE IS.
As Freidrich Nietzshech has said, " Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals."
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