Everything you know about sex is true.

Russian Criminal Tattoos exhibition

Between 1948 to 2005, 3,000 drawings were compiled by prison warden and ethnographer Danzing Baldaev of the tattoos of the inmates. Supported by the KGB, who recognised the usefulness of such a document, these drawings were supplemented by photographs by Sergei Vasiliev, a fellow warden.

Untitled Tattoo print. © Sergei Vasiliev courtesy Michel Hoppen Gallery

In 2003, the publisher Fuel began repackaging the sketches and photographs into the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia. The Michael Hoppen Gallery in London is opening an exhibition of Vasiliev’s photographs from this fascinating archive.

The motifs depicted represent the uncensored lives of the criminal classes, ranging from violence and pornography to politics and alcohol. Sergei Vasiliev's graphic and unflinching photographs show the grim reality of the Russian prison system and some of the characters that inhabit it. Malnourished, defiant, preternaturally aged and pensive, the photographs evoke a sense of compassion for the convicts despite the brutal crimes many of them committed.

The tattoos depicted are a language in themselves, comprising of a rich array of symbols and illustrations that denoted a prisoner's crimes and political allegiances, as well as his or her rank in the prison hierarchy. Prisoners typically applied them to each other — not always with consent — using inks improvised from soot, sugar, ashes and urine.