Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume I
Danzig Baldaev
In the 1970&prime;s, while American hippies were busy inking themselves with peace signs and psychedelic rainbows, Danzig Baldayev, a guard at St. Petersburg&rsquo;s notorious Kresty Prison, began documenting the far less Woodstockian body art of Russia&rsquo;s most infamous criminals.
For 33 years, Baldayev used his exclusive access to and rapport with the prisoners to hand-illustrate and capture in artful photographs more than 3,600 inmate tattoos &mdash; as admirable a feat artistically as it was sociologically.
This is the result.