As a missionary in Russia, my views into the criminal underworld were rather limited. Missionaries were, of course, sometimes mugged, and everyone ran into Gypsies and other beggars. Some missionaries preferred to exchange money on the street instead of in a bank because they got a better rate, but that was about it. A pretty cool story I was aware of was that one of the Russian missionaries had been in some kind of gang before joining the Church. The story went that he was found by missionaries who were tracting one night. They knocked on a door and this guy let them in. People were partying loudly in the apartment, but this guy took the missionaries into the kitchen and they talked for a few minutes. Further meetings ensued, and this guy joined the Church. It’s now been twenty years since my missionary service began, but maybe ten years ago, I heard that this guy had married one of the Russian sisters who served in St. Petersburg, too, and he had even had a stint as a branch president.
In The Vory: Russia's Super Mafia (ISBN: 978-0-300-18682-6) by Mark Galeotti, one gets a much more in-depth look at Russia’s criminals. The book looks at the heavy hitters, not the petty thieves, starting way back in tsarist times and finishing with events of the last couple years. The history of Russia’s criminals is interesting in that it is rather tightly woven together with the history of Russia itself. The Russian Empire, the Bolsheviks, Stalin, Gorbachev, and then Yeltsin and now Putin have all left a mark on Russian organized crime. The central figures, the so-called thieves in law (“in law” because they lived according to the thieves’ code) have proven themselves resourceful and adaptable, changing their methods and worldview to fit whatever comes their way. Originally unwilling to be part of mainstream society, Stalinist repression and policy caused a demographic shift in the underworld that resulted in the top criminals finding a partner, not an enemy, in the state, and that relationship has continued to morph up through today, where crime, business, and politics is often a blurry and hard-to-define conglomeration. Russian organized crime was a hot topic in the 1990s, when it and the oligarchs settled their scores openly and violently on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and security services around the world warned of the Russian mafia and its potential influence in Europe and even farther abroad. Galeotti discusses that, too, including organized crime in America that is tied to the Russians. He notes, though, that most of the Western fears never materialized, and the Russian criminals were never able to (or never even tried to) overtake the criminals who were already in place. Now, with their shady ties to legitimacy, they ply their trades on the margins, providing services such as hacking or providing frontline fighters in Crimea. There are a few significant words on the costs of crime, both in terms of people and economics. The author’s main thesis is that the Russian thieves, the vory, now a solid part of mainstream society, a complete 180° turn from their pre-Revolution days, have adapted before and will continue to adapt to whatever situation comes their way.
This was a very interesting book that I thought did an excellent job providing a sufficient amount of detail on a very broad and complicated subject without going into any one particular area too deeply, leaving that for other books, articles, etc. The history was well worth it, especially in the context of the overarching point of the book. I enjoyed the anecdotes as well as the analysis, finding it sound in most places. The point is well made, focusing largely on the post-Communist time period, which is more relevant to most readers, but pulling from the rich history of the thieves when necessary. The only danger with books of this nature is that the reader is prone to start thinking of all people in a given society, in this case the Russians, as criminals, when, in fact, it’s just a small subset of the entire population. Organized crime is presented as such as widespread thing that it seems everyone’s involved. One has to keep proper perspective when reading about the subject. On the other hand, it would seem that it’s a pervasive problem, and the book, in a way, is a call for people everywhere, but especially in the West, where organized crime is (hopefully?) not as pervasive, to work hard to prevent our government and business institutions from becoming so tightly intertwined with criminals because of the tolls that has on democracy and economics.
In The Vory: Russia's Super Mafia (ISBN: 978-0-300-18682-6) by Mark Galeotti, one gets a much more in-depth look at Russia’s criminals. The book looks at the heavy hitters, not the petty thieves, starting way back in tsarist times and finishing with events of the last couple years. The history of Russia’s criminals is interesting in that it is rather tightly woven together with the history of Russia itself. The Russian Empire, the Bolsheviks, Stalin, Gorbachev, and then Yeltsin and now Putin have all left a mark on Russian organized crime. The central figures, the so-called thieves in law (“in law” because they lived according to the thieves’ code) have proven themselves resourceful and adaptable, changing their methods and worldview to fit whatever comes their way. Originally unwilling to be part of mainstream society, Stalinist repression and policy caused a demographic shift in the underworld that resulted in the top criminals finding a partner, not an enemy, in the state, and that relationship has continued to morph up through today, where crime, business, and politics is often a blurry and hard-to-define conglomeration. Russian organized crime was a hot topic in the 1990s, when it and the oligarchs settled their scores openly and violently on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and security services around the world warned of the Russian mafia and its potential influence in Europe and even farther abroad. Galeotti discusses that, too, including organized crime in America that is tied to the Russians. He notes, though, that most of the Western fears never materialized, and the Russian criminals were never able to (or never even tried to) overtake the criminals who were already in place. Now, with their shady ties to legitimacy, they ply their trades on the margins, providing services such as hacking or providing frontline fighters in Crimea. There are a few significant words on the costs of crime, both in terms of people and economics. The author’s main thesis is that the Russian thieves, the vory, now a solid part of mainstream society, a complete 180° turn from their pre-Revolution days, have adapted before and will continue to adapt to whatever situation comes their way.This was a very interesting book that I thought did an excellent job providing a sufficient amount of detail on a very broad and complicated subject without going into any one particular area too deeply, leaving that for other books, articles, etc. The history was well worth it, especially in the context of the overarching point of the book. I enjoyed the anecdotes as well as the analysis, finding it sound in most places. The point is well made, focusing largely on the post-Communist time period, which is more relevant to most readers, but pulling from the rich history of the thieves when necessary. The only danger with books of this nature is that the reader is prone to start thinking of all people in a given society, in this case the Russians, as criminals, when, in fact, it’s just a small subset of the entire population. Organized crime is presented as such as widespread thing that it seems everyone’s involved. One has to keep proper perspective when reading about the subject. On the other hand, it would seem that it’s a pervasive problem, and the book, in a way, is a call for people everywhere, but especially in the West, where organized crime is (hopefully?) not as pervasive, to work hard to prevent our government and business institutions from becoming so tightly intertwined with criminals because of the tolls that has on democracy and economics.
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