Faculty of Design

Illustration

Peiyuan Xu

Gulag

Prisoner’s tattoo during ussr era

“ Prison tattooing is the practice of creating and displaying tattoos in a prison environment. Present-day American and Russian prisoners may convey gang membership, code, or hidden meanings for origin or criminal deeds. Different symbols and elements are either a identification of gangster or the crime one has committed. 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. Demonized images of political leaders are tattooed on their body to show their political attitudes. ”