When Danzig Baldaev (pictured, sitting) was a boy his father, an eminent Buryat ethnographer, was denounced as an “enemy of the people” by the Soviet authorities. Danzig was later sent to work as a prison guard. His life’s work, the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia, has just been published by Steidl/Fuel. Photos by Sergei Vasiliev.

source :http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/europe_russian_criminal_tattoos/html/1.stm