The Mark of Cain documents the decline of the criminal tattoo art form and language in Russia, a formerly banned subject in Russia. The now-disappearing practice is seen as a reflection of a wider transformation of Russian society. Filmed in some of Russia’s most notorious prisons, including the fabled White Swan, interviews with prisoners, guards and criminologists reveal the secret language of The Zone and The Code of Thieve.
Prisoners of Stalinist gulags (or so-called ghettos) developed a complex social structure (documented as far back as the 1920s) that included highly symbolic tattoos as marks of rank. The presence of these inmates in prisons and labor camps has been kept secret by the state.
In the 1990s, Russia’s prison population exploded, making it one of the most overcrowded prisons in the world. Some estimates suggest that the previous generation of Russian prisoners had more than 30 million tattoos, even though tattoos are illegal in Russian prisons.
The Mark of Cain examines every aspect of tattooing, from actually making tattoo ink, to interviewing tattoo artists, to taking a sober look at the double-edged sword of prison tattoos. In many ways, they are needed to survive the brutality of Russian prisons, but they mark the lives of prisoners, making it difficult for them to reintegrate into normal society.
Tattoos specifically indicate why offenders were sentenced, how many times they went to prison, and what type of criminal they were. A tattoo essentially tells you everything you need to know about that person without asking. Each tattoo represents various things; a church dome represents the number of convictions a criminal has, tattoo epaulettes represent an individual’s rank in the criminal world, and so on.
