The violent birth of the vory v zakone

Part 12 - How petty thieves have taken control of the Russian economy

Who are the vory v zakone? A literal translation describes them as thieves obeying a code (Vorovskoi zakon): two thirds of this criminal elite are Russian (33.1 percent) and Georgian (31.6 percent), the rest are Armenians (8.2 percent), Azerbaijanis (5.2 percent), Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Abkhazians (21.9 percent). They administer their own justice (vorovskaia spravedlivost) through their own court. They’re generally young: 85.6 percent among them are aged between 30 and 40. Only three vory are between 60 and 65, and just one is 75. Many are very young (25-27). They aren’t afraid of going to jail, they’re incorrigible, ready for anything.
Even though the origins of this phenomenon are obscure, there is no trace of vory v zakone in the former Soviet Union before the Bolshevik revolution. The first hints about them come about in the Thirties, when they got in touch with some fringes of political dissidents. Russia was full of thieves since the times of Peter the Great (1695-1725): in Moscow alone there were 30,000 but they weren’t organized in gangs. Many things changed during the second half of the 18th century: thieves began using nicknames and communicating by a cant (fenia), laying the foundations for a gang structure more or less organized. These structures were refined by the early 20th century, with the specification of leaders and roles within the various micro-organizations.
Following the 1917 revolution that led to the fall of Tsarism, the enemies of the new order tried to use criminals for their own purposes. Many politicians took the head of juvenile gangs and developed a series of rules, such as not to work, not to create a family, not to serve in the military, not to contribute financially to social welfare, not to go to the police for redressing a wrong suffered, not to testify in a criminal case. These juvenile gangs are called "zhigani" and what they did was the first step towards the creation of an underworld code. Finding a compromise in this forced cohabitation between politicians and criminals wasn’t easy. There were two different attitudes: "zhigani" aspired to social recognition, while thieves, always involved in petty crimes, had no intention of changing their nature.
In the Thirties, many defected: large numbers of thieves turned their backs on the "zhigani" and created autonomous groups led by cunning bosses, called "urki". From these conflicts between "zhigani" and "urki" the "vory v zakone" were born, and with them the code that still dictates law among Russian mobsters. This situation had similarities with what happened in Italy before the Unification, with the infant Mafia and Camorra associations that copied their "statutes" from those used by Freemasons and "Carbonari" (members of an Italian secret patriotic society).
World War II caused another big drift among the vory v zakone. Many answered the call to arms, and enlisted. Others kept their promise not to collaborate with the state, and remained in jail.
At the end of the war the vory who had joined the Stalinist cause tried to rejoin the underworld. Called traitors, they are turned away. The clash was unavoidable and became known as such’ya voina, a kind of war on traitors. The "suki" then decided to adopt an autonomous code, less strict than the vory v zakone one, allowing them to collaborate with authorities. Stalin himself used the suki to fight the regime’s enemies in the gulags.
"Today the vory v zakone form a sort of criminal aristocracy, they have a recruitment system that, like in the Thirties, passes through the jails, and they continue to adhere to rigid behavioural rules, very similar in normative content and ceremonial symbolism to traditional Mafia," explains RCMP Sergeant Reg King, one of the keenest observers of this phenomenon.
There are no godfathers in the style of La Cosa Nostra, because, as General Gennadij Cebotarev, the deputy chief of the Russian police organized crime department, remarked, "no clan leader will ever accept hierarchical subordination." The only occasions for the large gangs to join forces are international operations. In 1992 Prague hosted several summits, where representatives of Russian gangs, Italian Mafia and Colombian cartels met.
In addition to the vory v zakone, the criminal hierarchy in the former Soviet Union is composed of four other ranks: avtoritety, "authorities", very similar to the vory but less influential; deltcy, "operators", a fringe devoted to fraudulent crimes well connected to financial circles; kataly, "convicts" in Cossack language, gambling-den keepers by trade; and shesterki, "number sixes" (called thus because of their stooping attitude towards their bosses), dealing with low-level tasks, mostly on behalf of the avtoritety.
The ranks are completed by muziki, "men", pahany, "boys", obizenneye, "insulted", and opuscennye, "declassed".
"The vory," explains General Aleksandr Gurov, director of the Scientific Research Centre of the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation, "have a duty to diffuse the underworld’s morals and ethics, and to maintain tight connections with the leaders of other criminal castes." They answer to a code (Vorovskoi Zakon), handle power through supervisors (smotryaschiy) in several cities and manage an "insurance fund" (obshchak). The latter, a kind of mutual fund, supports the families of convicted members, serves in preparing new crimes, corrupting officials and guaranteeing usury loans.
Even among the vory there are substantial differences. Georgians, for instance, are totally different from Russians: the "blood" family is an essential element for the former, much like in the ‘ndrangheta. Many things are changing, however, especially after the disintegration of the Soviet empire. Once no vor considered jail as a burden: spending most of one’s life behind bars was normal, an honour, a privilege, especially in the eyes of the young. Jail was a home. Today, on the contrary, every moment spent behind bars seems to last forever.
Until not so long ago, even owning a house was forbidden. Today, many vory live abroad in gaudy luxury. Many of them, as Viktor Bulgakov, chief of Moscow Regional Police explains, are in the United States, France, Germany, Israel, Cyprus. "Some gangsters belonging to the powerful Solntsevo clan," said Bulgakov, "established in Vienna, where they bought a series of restaurants, hotels, stores, and purchased some luxury homes in the centre of the Austrian capital."
Some years ago, for instance, a summit of the Russian mob took place in Vienna in order to define influence spheres in post-perestroika Russia; it was attended by Timofeev, the Austrian Mihas, the American Yaponchick and German Petrik.
Many others lost their lives in the unchecked pursuit of wild capitalism. In the last few years more than 30 vory v zakone were murdered, including Otari Vitalievich Kvantrishvili, one of Russia’s most powerful bosses, Serghej Timofeev aka Silvestr, Vjaceslav Vinter aka Bobon, Serghej Sokolov, Sultan Daudov, the only vor recognized by the Tchetchenian mob, and Mikhailovich Beradze aka "Scarface", a Georgian very influential in Moscow.
Otari, son of a Georgian railway man, a former wrestler in the Dinamo sporting club, chair of the ‘Lev Jashin’ Foundation for the social defense of sportsmen, and a first-magnitude boss, was killed while he was exiting the Krasnopresnenskie baths in Moscow on April 5, 1994. An important businessman with influential connections in the Russian establishment, Otari just before his death had obtained from President Yeltsin the authorization to open a national sports centre as a share company.
He had obtained facilities and fiscal discounts, as well as export quotas for cement, metals, naphtha, titanium and aluminum. What all this had to do with sports is unclear. Otari had also decided to form a sportsmen’s party and often made TV speeches, but he was stopped by a sniper perhaps hired by Serghej Timofeev, aka Silvestr, a boss with no limits, less exposed than Otari, but more involved in the mob’s business (Solntsevo).
Vor v zakone for a day, Silvestr was born in 1955 in the town of Bendery, in the Novgorod region. He was blown to pieces while driving his Mercedes 600 on the third uliza TverskajaJamskaja in Moscow, on September 13, 1994, five months following Otari’s murder. "The man at the wheel," wrote the Moskovskij Komsomolets, "was literally spread on the seats."
Someone said that the bomb was intended for ex-PM Cernomyrdin who was to pass there some minutes later. But an anonymous telephone call to the Komsomolskaja Pravda, in addition to clarifying the identity of those nameless remains, indicated Bobab, a boss connected to Otari, as the principal in that execution.
"More than to the gangsterism and metropolitan delinquency present today in scarcely different forms, in all industry advanced societies," explains King, "the mob in the former USSR can be assimilated to traditional criminal organizations.
"There are many analogies, such as the use of violence as a tool for social mobility and occasion for entrepreneurial profit; a quiescent social consensus of the communities under mob control; the involvement of important segments of the political and institutional environment into criminal circles; and the ability to manage strongly legitimate activities where revenues of illicit activities may be funneled."

(translated by Emanuele Oriano)

Publication Date: 2001-06-24
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=93