Russian Criminal Tattoo Archive

Danzig Baldaev worked as a warden in ‘Kresty’ (‘the Crosses’) - an infamous Leningrad prison - where he began drawing the tattoos of criminals. Between 1948-2000 he travelled to reform settlements across the former USSR, using pen and ink to record the tattoos he found.

Sergei Vasiliev worked as a photographic journalist for more than 30 years. He documented Russian prisoners and their tattoos in between 1990-93. His work has been exhibited internationally including in the Saatchi Gallery, London and Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin.

Arkady Bronnikov was a police officer working in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Perm between 1963-91. During this time, he collected thousands of photographs of tattooed prisoners from across the Soviet Union.

Mark Vincent is a writer and academic. He is the author of Criminal Subculture in the Gulag (Bloomsbury). He is a lecturer at the University of East Anglia, School of History.

Alison Nordström is an independent scholar, writer and curator specializing in photography. She holds the PhD in Cultural and Visual Studies and is currently a Research Associate in Photography at Harvard University.

EDITORS: Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell have been publishing critically acclaimed books on Soviet culture since 2004 with their Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia series. More recent titles include Chernobyl; A Stalkers’ Guide, Spomenik Monument Database and Soviet Bus Stops.