![cover image](https://wikiwandv2-19431.kxcdn.com/_next/image?url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Tattooed_former_Soviet_prisoner.jpg/640px-Tattooed_former_Soviet_prisoner.jpg&w=640&q=50)
Russian criminal tattoos
Tattoo culture / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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During the 20th century in the Soviet Union, Russian criminal and prison communities maintained a culture of using tattoos to indicate members' criminal career and ranking. Specifically among those imprisoned under the Gulag system of the Soviet era, the tattoos served to differentiate a criminal leader or thief in law from a political prisoner.[1]
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Tattooed_former_Soviet_prisoner.jpg/320px-Tattooed_former_Soviet_prisoner.jpg)
The practice grew in the 1930s, peaking in the 1950s and declining in popularity in the 1970s and 1980s.[1][2]