Danzig Baldaev

The Russian Criminal Tattoo Archive presents highlights from FUEL's singular collection of authentic material on this subject. Previously unpublished in its original form, this work comprises ink on paper drawings by Danzig Baldaev, the photographic albums of Arkady Bronnikov, and prisoner portraits by Sergei Vasiliev. The selection is contextualised with insights from Mark Vincent PhD, an author and academic specialising...

This beautifully produced boxed set of 53 postcards contains stunning images from the best-selling Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia series of books. These hugely popular and influential books document the Russian criminal tattoo, revealing their hidden meanings. The motifs depicted represent the uncensored lives of the criminal classes; their tattoos were a secret tribal language, a method of showing status within...

Drawings from the Gulag consists of 130 drawings by Danzig Baldaev describing the history, horror and peculiarities of the Gulag system from its inception in 1918. Baldaev's father, a respected ethnographer, taught him techniques to record the tattoos of criminals in St Petersburg's notorious Kresty prison, where he worked as a guard. He was reported to the KGB who unexpectedly...