Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume II

During his lifetime as a guard in St. Petersburg's notorious Kresty Prison, Danzig Baldaev diligently recorded over 3,000 criminals' tattoos and their coded meanings. His drawings form a unique gallery, a passport into a hidden world of shovel-faced politicans, skeletons pushing wheelbarrows, salami-wielding prostitutes, fornicating devils, messages tangled in barbed wire, monkeys in uniform, and more. Tattoos on hands, feet, legs, torsos, foreheads, eyelids, buttocks and genitals all take their place in this fascinating document of a rapidly disappearing society, where history, status, and even sexual preference are indelibly etched on the body. An essential companion to the critically acclaimed first volume, the book features drawings and black and white photos from Baldaev's extraordinary archives. Introduction by Pulitzer-winning Anna Applebaum. 

Republished in 2011 by Fuel Publishing 
7½ x 6, Hardcover 
399 pages