Gangs of Russia: From the Streets to the Corridors of Power

288 Pages·2015·1.012 MB·English

by  Svetlana Stephenson

GANGS OF RUSSIA

GANGS OF
RUSSIA
From the Streets to the Corridors
of Power
Svetlana Stephenson
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS I THACA AND LONDON
Copyright © 2015 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from
the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House,
512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 2015 by Cornell University Press
First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2015
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stephenson, Svetlana, 1962– author.
Gangs of Russia : from the streets to the corridors of power / Svetlana Stephenson.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8014-5387-8 (cloth : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-1-5017-0024-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Gangs—Russia (Federation) 2. Organized crime—Russia (Federation)
3. Political corruption—Russia (Federation) 4. Russia (Federation)—Social
conditions—1991– I. Title.
HV6439.R8S74 2015
364.106′60947—dc23 2015003676
Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers
and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such
materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are
recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further
information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.
Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Paperback printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover image: Young men at a city festival in Nizhny Novgorod, c. 2005. Photo by
Alik Yakubovich.
For Bob and Alexei

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: In the Shadow of the State 1
1. Street Organizations and Gangs in Russia 16
2. The Transformation of Gangs in the 1990s 44
3. The Business of Bandit Gangs: From Predation
to Assimilation 65
4. Gang Organization 92
5. Street Trajectories 127
6. The Gang in the Community 151
7. Life according to the Poniatiia: The Gang’s Code 170
8. Navigating the World of Violence 189
9. Gang Culture and the Wider Russian Society 223
Conclusion: Out of the Shadows? 235
Appendix: Development of Tatarstan Gangs, Three Examples 239
Key to Interviewees 243
Methodological Note 245
Glossary 247
References 251
Index 269
vii

Acknowledgments
T here are many people whose support and friendship helped me to write this book.
First and foremost I am grateful to the late Alexander Salagaev—whose energy,
professionalism, erudition, and good humor made him a joy to work with—and
his colleagues, Alexander Shashkin and Rustem Safin, who generously shared their
expertise and knowledge at all stages of the study and organized the fieldwork in
Kazan. I am also very grateful to Rustem Maksudov, who greatly helped with the
fieldwork in Moscow and whose own experience of researching Kazan gangs at
the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s significantly enriched this book.
The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation provided the critical research
funding, and I am very grateful to them for their support. I would also like to
express my deep gratitude to all the research participants who were willing to
share sensitive details about their lives and who, to protect their confidentiality,
must stay anonymous.
Many friends and colleagues generously provided advice, support, and encour-
agement along the way. Special thanks go to Dave Brotherton, Dmitrii Gromov,
Irina Kuznetsova-Morenko, John Lea, Alexei Levinson, Vincenzo Ruggiero, Dan-
iel Silverstone, and Kevin Stenson. My dear friends Simon Hallsworth, Andrew
Travers, and Elena Danilova read the manuscript and contributed thoughts and
ideas throughout our ongoing conversations about Russia, its gangs, and the rest
of the world’s burning issues.
I would like to make a special mention of the University of Helsinki and the
Aleksanteri Institute that provided me with the opportunity to spend a very fruit-
ful two months in Helsinki as a visiting research fellow in 2013. I am also grateful
to my colleagues at the University of Virginia, and especially Kate Makarova and
Robert Geraci, for inviting me to present a paper at their workshop series and
for their constructive comments on my work. My gratitude also goes to my col-
leagues at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at London Metropolitan
University for all their support.
My sincere thanks also go to Roger Haydon, Ange Romeo-Hall, Katy Meigs,
and their colleagues at Cornell University Press for all their encouragement, sup-
port, hard work, professionalism, and patience, and to their anonymous review-
ers for their constructive and insightful comments.
Some of the ideas in chapters 1 and 8 were initially developed in my article
“The Violent Practices of Youth Territorial Groups in Moscow,” Europe-Asia
ix