Imagine a country run like a mafia empire. This isn’t a Hollywood script. This is Russia’s hidden reality.
I grew up in the final decades of the Soviet empire, where everyone knew someone who’d been to prison, and today, I’m pulling back the curtain—because the criminal codes I saw growing up didn’t disappear. They became the blueprint for modern Russian power. I’ll take you deep inside Russia’s secret mafia state—and show you how an entire nation was captured by its own underworld.

The World of My Childhood


How do I know so much about the criminal underworld?
Because the people in it were my neighbors.
In most societies, people with similar backgrounds tend to cluster together. But in the Soviet Union, that logic didn’t apply.
Starting in the 1920s, the Bolshevik government decided everyone should live side by side—professors with alcoholics, factory workers with the former nobility, old eccentrics with young Communist activists.

In those early Soviet cities, private apartments didn’t exist. Families were crammed into kommunalki—communal flats where each family got a single room. So it wasn’t unusual for an educated family to share a wall with a hardened criminal.
Even by the 1960s, when private apartments became more common, the randomness remained. You got whoever the system assigned. Sometimes you lucked out—maybe your neighbor ran a fruit warehouse and slipped you a few rare oranges.  But just as often, you ended up next to a professional thief.
 The idea was that law-abiding citizens would help “rehabilitate” the so-called backward elements. In practice, that never happened. We just coexisted with the criminals—and tried not to get in their way.


I remember one moment vividly. It was my grandmother’s birthday. The table was beautifully set, the guests had arrived with flowers, and everyone was dressed up. And then—from the apartment next door—we heard a blood-curdling scream: “Help! He’s going to kill me!”
A repeat offender had just been released from prison—and was now chasing his own mother with a knife.

Scenes like that weren’t rare. They were just part of life.

The children of criminals went to school with the children of professors. In my class, there were boys who made life miserable for everyone. They picked up criminal habits and proudly showed them off. They cursed constantly, started smoking as early as possible, bragged about sexual conquests, stole money from younger kids—and treated having a father or older brother in prison like a badge of honor.
They even gave themselves prison-style tattoos. Crude little drawings scratched into their hands.

I’d love to say I was untouched by that world. But I wasn’t. My childhood heroes were Robin Hood the robber and Captain Blood the pirate. And the girl singing old prison ballads in a sweet soprano voice while strumming a guitar? That was me.

And not just me. Nearly all my well-behaved girlfriends did it too.

The criminal world was everywhere. Everyone knew your apartment could be robbed at any moment, or you could get mugged on the street. My father met me at the bus stop every day—not because he was overprotective, but because he had to.

We all understood one thing: The state wouldn’t help you. And if you hadn’t been attacked or robbed, that just meant you’d gotten lucky.

Everyone I know had at least one run-in with crime. Some were stabbed. Others had their wallets stolen on the bus. I was one of the lucky ones—my wallet was the only thing I ever lost.

And yet, in the official Soviet press, right up until Perestroika in the 1980s, there was almost no mention of crime at all. Criminals only existed as villains in books or movies.

The state insisted that crime was a relic of capitalism. In America or Italy? Sure, they had the mafia. But us? No—just the occasional bad apple. And we were handling it.

So, how did this criminal world end up gaining so much power?

To understand that, we need to go back into history.

The Criminal World Before the 1917 Revolution


Before the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia’s criminal underworld inspired both horror and fascination.
The tsarist government was ruthless with anyone it labeled a criminal. Arrests—and especially the punishments that followed—were meant to terrify the public into obedience.

Prisoners were crammed into overcrowded, damp cells with little or no heat. But the real nightmare began when someone was sentenced to katorga—forced labor in the most brutal corners of Siberia.
Most were sent to mines or factories with deadly working conditions. The state had no interest in rehabilitation. It didn’t want to spend money feeding or housing convicts. It wanted cheap labor. And katorga gave it exactly that—by sending people to places no one else would go.

In many ways, it was legalized slavery. Think of the British Empire’s penal colonies—Australia and the Caribbean—where criminals and dissidents were shipped off to work. Russia did the same. The only difference? The climate was far crueler than the tropics.

In the early years, prisoners sentenced to katorga made the journey on foot. That trek could take up to two years.

They walked in shackles. Half their heads were shaved so anyone could recognize them as criminals. Even if they escaped and shaved the other half, the sunburn always gave them away.

They wore special robes marked with a diamond-shaped symbol on the back—called the Ace of Diamonds.

Long, grim lines of prisoners in these robes would march through Russian towns on their way to exile. People watched them pass like they were witnessing souls being sent to hell.

Eventually, the state began transporting convicts by sea. Ships left from Odessa on the Black Sea, passed through the Suez Canal, around India, and up to Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. Conditions in the ship’s holds were horrific. Many died before ever reaching land. And for women, the journey almost always meant sexual violence.

Under the tsars, political prisoners were kept separate from common criminals. They were seen as the elite of the prison world—usually literate, often idealistic, capable of organizing their lives even in exile. They set up schools, libraries, mutual aid societies inside the camps. And when they returned from katorga, they often carried the aura of heroism—survivors who had endured hell for a cause.

That’s what happened to Fyodor Dostoevsky, who was sentenced to hard labor.  After his release, he wrote a haunting account of that experience. (I have a full video about his story on my channel.)

But political prisoners were a tiny minority. The vast majority of those sent to katorga were ordinary people—driven to crime by poverty, alcoholism, or simply because crime was their trade.

The Revolution’s Criminal Roots



After the Bolshevik Revolution, many of the new Soviet leaders were former prisoners themselves—veterans of tsarist hard labor and exile. Years in prison camps had shaped their worldview. The rules, hierarchies, and survival instincts of prison were baked into their minds.

So when they took power, they didn’t build a worker’s paradise. They built what they knew best—a prison the size of the state.
At first, they dreamed of utopia—no police, no prisons, just harmony among comrades. But as soon as they faced resistance from the White Army, that dream collapsed.

They resurrected the old tsarist system of repression—but gave it a new name: re-education.
In the 1920s, Soviet prisoners were still split into two categories: political and criminal. But now, criminals were seen not as threats—but as victims of the old bourgeois world. The Bolsheviks believed they could be reformed. And so, they treated them with surprising leniency.

Many prisons were housed in former monasteries, with surprisingly relaxed rules. Schoolchildren even came to perform concerts for the inmates. Some prisoners were allowed to work outside—and many came back. Why? Because life outside was harder. In prison, at least, there was food and shelter.
If you want to explore this strange reality further, I dive deep into it in my novel, The Prince of the Soviets.

But political prisoners were treated very differently. After the Civil War, the Bolsheviks granted amnesty to former White Army officers who hadn’t fled the country. But soon enough, many of them were arrested and sent to forced labor camps.

This was the beginning of the GULAG—a sprawling network of camps where real and imagined enemies of the regime were crushed.

The Soviet regime had two primary goals: eliminate resistance and build an industrial empire. Forced labor let them do both.

Under Stalin, the system grew monstrous. There weren’t enough guards to control the camps, so criminals were given power. They brutalized political prisoners, ran internal economies, and enforced their own order. Many of the guards were convicts themselves. My own grandfather, arrested after the war, served as an armed “trustee” in one of those camps.

It was during this time, in the 1930s, that a new figure emerged in the underworld: The vor v zakone—the “thief-in-law.”

He wasn’t just a criminal. He was a priest of the underworld. A keeper of codes. A ruler of prison life.
The thieves-in-law had their own ranks, rituals, and laws. Crime wasn’t something they did—it was who they were. Prison wasn’t a punishment—it was home.

Their code was strict. No family. No cooperation with authorities. No prison labor. And because they controlled smuggling, bribes, and information, even prison administrators relied on them.

But that order didn’t last. During World War II, many prisoners were offered a deal: Fight for the Red Army—and wash away your crimes with blood.

Thousands accepted. But under the criminal code, that was betrayal. Any cooperation with the state—even fighting Nazis—was forbidden.

Those who fought returned to crime, were arrested again, and sent back to prison. But now they were suki—traitors. And the old thieves-in-law didn’t forgive.

A brutal conflict broke out behind bars: The Suka War. A civil war inside the prison camps.
The suki refused to submit. The thieves-in-law refused to accept them back. Stabbings, beatings, murders—the violence was relentless.

Prison authorities looked the other way. Eventually, the death toll grew so high, the state was forced to step in and end the bloodshed. But by then, both sides had been gutted.

Under Stalin, millions passed through prisons and labor camps. That left a deep scar on the Soviet psyche—on people’s values, fears, and ideas about power. And because criminals held real status in that world—because they survived and even thrived—something strange took root in society.

Criminals became the only people who seemed to stand up to the system and win.

While political prisoners were pitied as victims, criminals were respected as fighters. They didn’t beg. They didn’t fear violence. They had their own laws. Their own brotherhood. Their own pride.

The Psychology of the Criminal Hierarchy

To understand why criminal subculture has such a powerful grip on society, we have to look deeper—into the psychology behind it.

Every criminal group, no matter how modern it appears, runs on something ancient: Male alliances.

These aren’t modern inventions. They’re primal behavioral programs hardwired into the male brain—originally meant to support hunting, defend against outsiders, and compete for dominance and mates.
And this ancient system comes with very specific rules:

• Rule One: Cooperate to acquire resources and protect the group.



• Rule Two: Constant competition within the group. There’s always a struggle for status. At the top sits the alpha. At the bottom, the outcasts—bullied and humiliated.



• Rule Three: The alpha takes as much as he wants, can show aggression freely, and in return, shares his spoils with his most loyal enforcers.



• Rule Four: The alliance is closed. You don’t join without invitation. You don’t leave without consequences.



• Rule Five: Symbols, rituals, and ranks define who belongs. Who’s real. Who’s not.



• Rule Six: Loyalty is everything. The group is sacred, and outsiders don’t count as fully human.



This isn’t just about criminals. You see the same structure in primitive tribes, military units, elite clubs, street gangs—even corporate boardrooms.

Civilized societies use laws and morals to keep these instincts in check, but when those restraints vanish, what you get is the criminal world. 

And that’s part of the appeal. Because at its core, the criminal boss is an ancient figure: Dominant. Violent. Captivating. He follows the old script, and our brains still recognize, respect, and even admire it. It feels right to our cave-dweller minds. It’s the same reason we overeat, stare at fire, pet furry animals, or sing in groups.

Anyone can rise in a male alliance if they’re tough and strategic. But becoming the leader? That takes something primal—something you can’t fake.

It all comes down to one primal instinct: How do you respond to threat?

Some people freeze. Others run. But a few—the most dangerous few—go straight into fight mode. That reaction kicks in before thought, before training, before words. It’s not a choice. It’s wiring.

If your default is rage, you lash out, take risks, and dominate. If it’s fear, you pull back or try to de-escalate. And in tribal life, the person who responds with rage often climbs to the top—because others instinctively avoid fighting him. Why? Because survival once meant avoiding injury at all costs. In a world without medicine, one bad wound could mean death—for you, and for your children.

But the rage-types are exempt from that rule. Human tribes evolved to need all kinds: warriors, caregivers, and explorers. Everyone has a role. Everyone gets a share. The rage-driven person can be a threat or a powerful asset. That’s why we’re drawn to aggression and to the people who take what they want and make the rules.

Think about the characters you admire in fiction. How do they respond to danger?
 With fear—or with fury? We root for the fighters. Because it’s not just culture. It’s biology.

The Romanticization of the Criminal World


By the second half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union had developed a very specific kind of counterculture—not one based on underground literature or avant-garde art…but on criminal romanticism.

Official Soviet culture pushed ballet, patriotic films, and socialist realism. The intelligentsia had samizdat—banned books and forbidden poems passed hand to hand. But most people didn’t read samizdat. They gravitate towards a folk culture of crime.

By the 1960s, the Soviet dream was collapsing as the worldwide revolution never came. The state, once obsessed with wiping out criminals, now quietly used them. Not just to suppress political dissent—but to handle dirty work, manage the black market, and supply what the state couldn’t.

Need rare medicine? A Western jacket? A spare part for your broken bike? You didn’t go to the store. You went to the right guy. And the right guy often had criminal ties.

Over time, associating with criminals became not just practical—but prestigious.

And then came the 1990s. The Soviet Union collapsed—along with all its rules. Most people had no idea how to navigate capitalism. But the criminals? They’d spent years dealing in trade, currency exchange, and illegal manufacturing. They knew how to make money and protect their interests, and just like that, the criminal class became a new elite.

Suddenly, everyone was writing about them. Music followed. Books followed. TV and film followed. Most of these stories were pure fantasy. But they struck a nerve—because they gave people something they craved: heroes with sharp masculine energy, who didn’t submit, who fought and won. And that became… aspirational.

In the ’90s, being a gangster wasn’t just tolerated—it was cool. It meant black Mercedes, burgundy jackets, gold chains and rings, and absolute confidence.

No, not everyone wanted to be a criminal. But it felt good to be connected. If the right people respected you, you were protected. Because by then—and even now—nobody really expected justice from the courts. You defended your interests with your fists…Or you knew someone who would.

The Russian Mafia


In the West, the term “Russian mafia” is often misunderstood. People mash together images from The Godfather, sprinkle in some Cold War stereotypes, and end up with a bizarre fantasy fit for a steamy paperback sold to bored housewives. And yet—those books sell incredibly well. I see them constantly on Amazon’s bestseller lists.

The plot is always the same: Some Mikhail or Sergei, head of the “Bratva,” falls for a sweet American girl. Her love melts his tortured, beastly heart. Beauty and the Beast—Russian edition.

But the Russian mafia is the Russian state. Under Putin, crime and government fused into one system. In the 1990s, men with criminal ties made their fortunes— and then went into politics.

They didn’t change. They brought their criminal worldview with them—into parliament, into ministries, and into foreign policy.

They act not like statesmen— but like mob bosses. Their loyalty is internal. “Us” versus everyone else.
The rest of the population? They’re not citizens. They’re prey. That’s why they treat Russians like an occupied people. Take what you want. Freeze their bank accounts. Send their sons to die in war. Shut down YouTube.  Punish a whole nation—because someone “disrespected” you.

This same mafia logic drives Russia’s foreign policy: Hacking elections, stealing data, hiring gangs to spread chaos abroad.

These aren’t rogue operations. They’re tactics from a criminal system operating under a state flag. Inside Russia, the corruption is relentless. Criminal schemes flourish— with the full knowledge and blessing of the authorities.

I’ve heard stories of elderly people pressured into loans they didn’t need—just so criminals,
 along with dirty bankers and cops, could steal their apartments.

Phone scams are run directly from inside prisons— with the guards watching, even helping.

Victims are manipulated into “safe transfers,” only to watch their savings vanish.

Entire markets are controlled by ethnic gangs. One group manages the car trade, another oversees open-air markets, and another handles advertising space. Everyone’s “just doing business.” Because everyone knows: Something bad is coming.

And in a mafia world, the only real protection is money—preferably hidden in foreign banks.

The mafia has no vision and no strategy. Just ancient instincts: dominate rivals, hoard resources, crush dissent.

Western leaders often mistake Putin for a mastermind. They fear his nuclear threats.
 They assume it’s chess. It’s not. It’s a bluff—a criminal tactic. Make you think he’s crazy enough to blow everything up.
He’s not. He just wants you to believe he might, because that’s how the mafia wins.

If you want to stop a mafia state, don’t treat it like a government. Treat it like what it is: a gang. Talk to criminologists, not diplomats. Study their tactics, not their press briefings.

Every one of Putin’s actions— from massive theft to wars of aggression— is already written in the Russian criminal code. But as the old saying goes: Who’s going to arrest him?

Russia isn’t what it pretends to be. Beneath the flags, the speeches, the pageantry— lies a mafia empire built on ancient instinct. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

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