Baldaev D.S. Tattoos of prisoners: Album. - St. Petersburg: Limbus Press, 2001. - 168 p.

Despite the more than relaxed and democratic nature of the modern book market, Russia has never seen such a book. For a country in which in many cities and towns every third the man completed his sentence, and every fifth man guarded him, “body” painting - tattoos of criminals - is truly the most important of the arts, representing a great and terrible document. For many decades, prisoners’ tattoos have been an “open book” of human grief, a truly folk art, suffered in the vast expanses of the Soviet and later Russian zones. This publication is the first book in the complete collection of “Tattoos of the Criminal World” by D. S. Baldaev, which includes more than three thousand tattoos of criminals, which the author collected and systematized throughout his life. The publishers of the book, sharing the possible aesthetic protest of readers, nevertheless believe that art is not necessarily what we like.

Edited by Sudakov A.M.

Photo on the fourth side of the cover: the author, Baldaev D.S., among the authorities of the zone during the collection of materials in the penitentiary colony No. 9 of maximum security, village. Gorelovo, Leningrad region. 1989

ISBN 5-8370-0128-X

© D. S. Baldaev, compilation, illustrations, text, 2001© S. G. Vasiliev, photographs, 2001© A. Filippov, layout, 2001© A. Plutser-Sarno, introductory article, 2001© Limbus Press Publishing LLC, 2006

D. S. BALDAEVTATTOOS OF PRISONERS

Editor L. Mirzaev. Set by N. Khalimonchuk. Proofreader N. Knyazeva. Layout by A. Filippov. License ID 05808 dated September 10, 2001. All-Russian product classifier OK-005-93. volume 2: 953900 – fiction. Signed for printing on 12 12.05. Format 60x90/8. Times typeface. Offset paper. Offset printing.Conditions. oven l. 22. Circulation 3000 copies. Order No. 2184. Limbus Press Publishing House LLC, 190005. St. Petersburg, Izmailovsky Ave., 14. Tel. 712-6706 Marketing Department: tel. 575-09-63, fax 712-67-06. Tel/fax in Moscow: (095) 291-9605.

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