| Author of Huxiu Youth Culture Group
| Zhazha County
describes the youth cultural phenomenon of the last century and is a rich mine for creating excellent cultural products:
For example, the United States has "On the Road", the United Kingdom has "Trainspotting", and Japan There is "Cruel Story of Youth", and China also has "Days Related to Youth" and "The Stubborn Master".
Now, there is also a TV series in Russia called "Boys' Vow". By depicting the bloody story of youth gangs in the last century, it has aroused heated discussions in the pan-Soviet cultural circle and triggered the nostalgia of the people of the CIS. Climax, there are even statistics showing that 83% of people in Russia have heard of this show.
In this hit Russian drama, you can witness firsthand the slow decay of the Red Empire.
In the 1980s, the Soviet Union's public security declined, young gangs began to emerge in various cities, and schools became battlefields for fights.
Faced with the situation that if you don’t belong to a gang, you will be beaten, joining a gang has become a survival wisdom for Soviet young people, especially boys.
Based on this, a boy named Robert Garaev joined a gang called низы near his home. Together with 150 other youth gangs in Kazan, they attacked others with violence and occupied the neighborhood.
50 years later, when he grew up, robert garaev began to reflect on his absurd youth and how Russia ended up here. So he wrote a book called "A Boy's Oath: Crime in Tatarstan 1970-2010" based on his own experiences. The content of the book
is the core of the story of the "Boy's Vow" episode.
"boy's word. criminal tatarstan 1970-2010", 2021, robert garaev
The era focused on in the novel is the period of Brezhnev's administration, but the "Boy's Vow" series has made adjustments and adjusted the timeline It was a winter in Kazan during the Gorbachev era. The Soviet Union shown through the lens of
is not the mighty Soviet Red Army, the splendid Kremlin, or an elegant opera. It strives to express the brutalist design of social security housing, scarce store shelves, and muddy snow. As well as peeling wallpaper, the director combined these elements together with a grayish filter to create a scene of decay that makes people feel depressed just looking at it.
A scene from the drama, a Lada G8 Vaz-2108 car driving in Kazan City.
The building in the distance is a Brutalist design building, which is also very common in China and is often used as social housing.
75% of the houses in the Soviet Union are made of industrially produced concrete slabs. One of their biggest features is that they have no decoration.
Andre, who grew up in a single-parent family, is one of these young people.
Andrei is a middle school student at a music school. He lives with his mother and sister in a "Stalin-style apartment" in Kazan City. His dream is to become a musician. There is no piano at home, so he draws a piano keyboard by himself and plays it every day. He practiced hard with his family and behaved like a good student.
According to this trend, even if Andre cannot become a musician, he will probably work in the music industry when he grows up, find a related job after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and live his life in an ordinary way.
But the spread of campus violence caused his life to deviate from the established track.
Andrei practicing on the paper piano
A two-story Stalinist apartment made of cinder blocks with a wooden ceiling, built after the war. Because of its low cost and simple technology,
was the main force in solving the housing problem at that time.
Although old and rough, there is a saying in the Russian real estate industry: «Сталинка» – это качество!, that is, Stalin-style housing is a representative of quality.
Andrei's middle school years, that is, the 1980s shown in the play, were the time when the crime rate in the Soviet Union was soaring, and a large wave of people made a living by committing crimes appeared. Data show that between 1960 and 1990, 30 million people were sentenced in the Soviet Union, and 1/3 of them committed another crime, which is enough to prove the chaotic situation at that time.
When the crime wave affects society, schools are no exception. Cutting money has become the most common crime in school bullying.
Faced with the blackmail from the school gang, Andre did not seek help from the Communist Youth League picket team, nor did he bow his head to surrender. Instead, he chose to join another youth gang to fight violence with violence.
Andrei's choice was a helpless one, because in Kazan, the Soviet Union at that time, children who did not join gangs were called "чушпан-non-gang people" and would be ruthlessly squeezed by street youth gangs, and seeking protection from public power would also Incurring greater revenge, this desperation is clearly displayed in the warning of the youth gang at the time:
"You can catch one of us, but the rest of us will keep hunting you."
Andre was cut for money
In response to this situation, Andre joined the department store, a youth gang near his home, through his friend Marat. From then on, he broke away from his status as a "gang-free" and would no longer be blackmailed and beaten on campus.
The department store was established by Marat's brother, Vova Adidas. After he returned from the war in Afghanistan, he re-emerged as the leader of the gang.
In the future, he led the youth gang and Andre to go further and further down the road of violence, from theft, gang fights in the compound, to robbery on the road, to revenge killings and economic crimes. They used violence and blood to It writes the prelude to the rise of the Russian gang and also plays the sad music of the end of the Soviet Union.
Marat and Andre
Marat's brother Vova Adidas, the medals on the chest are:
2 level soldier badge, soldier skill level badge, divided into four levels: M, 1, 2, 3, with M level It is the highest
Outstanding Army Medal
Second Class Military Athlete Badge
Guards Badge, Guards Troop Identification Badge
Paratrooper Badge, Paratrooper Qualification Badge, with the number of parachute jumps marked on the front or back
In addition to the street boy becoming a gangster step by step, The director also showed the chaos and confusion at the end of the Soviet Union by depicting the perspective of adults.
As the only adult in the department store gang, Vova Adidas, an outstanding front-line soldier who has just returned from Afghanistan, may understand the internal problems and opportunities of this country better than anyone else.
So, after he returned to life, he quickly completed his identity change. He rejected the job opportunity and further education provided by his father, a senior official, and instead chose to start a criminal business by robbing people on the road, collecting protection fees, opening an underground video room...
For the parents of these children, the collapse of the Soviet Union had already happened within their families.
They can't figure out why their good children have become like this. They can only feel that when the old morals and lifestyle are no longer accepted by the younger generation, and when life becomes more and more chaotic, no matter they are high-ranking officials or ordinary people, they They are just a leaf of duckweed in the tide of the great times, and they can only watch in despair as society and families fall apart.
"A Boy's Oath" uses a large number of Soviet elements to show a broad panoramic view of life in the late Red Empire society, and the details of the crimes of youth gangs are not idle remarks without reason, but details with profound meaning.
These details are Russia’s cruel memories that continue from the past to the present.
The characters, gangs and even events in the play "A Boy's Vow" all really existed in Russian history.
The final fate of many of the characters was that they died in the chaotic period after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The causes of death were mostly vendettas, assassinations and judicial trials.
It is worth mentioning that robert garaev, the original author of "A Boy's Vow", his corresponding character in the play is the protagonist Andrei.
"In order to escape from the gang, my mother took me to move away from Kazan. I went to university and started another life... When I was 25 years old, I moved to Moscow and worked as a reporter, DJ and tour guide. In short I stayed away from the 'street and bro culture'," said Robert Garaev.The youth shown by
robert garaev was regarded by later generations as a landmark event in the rise of Russian gangs. Their behavior has a proper name in the eyes of Russian criminologists - "Казанский феномен - Kazan phenomenon".
Kazan, the sixth largest city in the Russian Federation, is 797 kilometers away from Moscow. It is located at the confluence of the Volga River and the Kazan River. It is the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Tatarstan.
After World War II, Kazan ushered in a stage of hyper-industrial development. During this period, Russians, Tatars, Chuvash people, Ukrainians, Jews... a large number of people poured into the city to participate in the construction. and formed neighborhoods and compounds for various ethnic groups. The children in each courtyard would play in groups, so they developed a sense of territoriality, and fights became frequent.
For example, the department store gang in the play is considered to be the most famous gang in Kazan, the "tyap-lyap". They are children who grew up near the teplokontrol factory in Kazan. The name of the gang was changed from the name of the factory.
tyap-lyap gang member
As the conflict escalates, more and more gangs are beginning to train their members, specifically by practicing boxing.
At the same time, the traditional Russian boxing custom has become popular among urban youth groups again with the influence of immigrants. This kind of team fighting event is called stenka na stenku, which roughly means team boxing. It has been a low-level entertainment activity for Russians as early as the 12th century. It is a trumpet that demonstrates masculinity. Peter the Great even believed that this kind of game can demonstrate national ability.
But in Kazan during the Soviet period, this custom increased the intensity of the confrontation. Regardless of whether it was entertainment or conflict, the entire city became a war zone, and all the children were beaten into a pot of porridge.
stenka na stenku
recorded in ancient classics Children on the streets are the best reserve army for gangs. Especially during the period of national decline, the failure of grassroots control will greatly accelerate this transformation.
During the Brezhnev period, the Soviet Union entered a period of stagnation. The economy is sluggish and food production has dropped so much that the country needs to spend a lot of foreign exchange to buy food. At the same time, due to the insufficient supply of daily necessities, social order has also begun to be affected. Productivity has been declining, and absenteeism and alcoholism have become social problems.
Against the background of all recessions, economic supervision has also become looser. In order to monetize their power, the heads of Soviet state-owned enterprises began to cooperate with street gangs. This form of crime was called "underground workshop director". From then on, the shadow economy emerged, and those The gangs responsible for transit began to evolve from street fighting to organized crime.
The internal logic of this evolution is that economic crimes in the Soviet era, like modern drug crimes, require a large amount of logistics and sales work to be handled in the dark, and require an effective and secure communication mechanism, which must be established on On top of violence, those young people on the streets are naturally regarded as a resource of violence.
If in the past they fought for the "honor of the neighborhood" and the entertainment space of the square, then starting in the 1970s, they fought for crime. According to data, in the 1980s, one-third of Kazan youths aged 12-18 were gang members.
In the play "Boy's Vow", the department store members are undergoing "military training"
Money breeds more intense crimes.
In this moment of drastic change, the organizational structure of youth gangs has become increasingly clear, and the embryonic form of organized crime has emerged.
"Boys' Pledge" shows the organizational structure of youth gangs. They are stratified by age:
The first level is mainly children around 13 years old. They belong to the organization's reserve team and are responsible for standing guard when the organization commits criminal acts. . The second level of
is mainly composed of students aged 14-19. They are the warriors in the team and are responsible for guarding the courtyard and preventing local invasion. They are also responsible for collecting the "membership dues" of the first-level members.
The third level, members over 20 years old, are leaders in the organization, especially those who have served as soldiers, and have the power to launch gang wars and formulate larger criminal plans.
In addition to the hierarchy, the Kazan youth gangs at that time also had strict discipline, such as prohibiting drinking, drug use, and smoking. At the same time, patriotism also required them.
As the crimes of Kazan youth gangs became more and more rampant, their gangs A small fight eventually turned into a huge crime wave.
In August 1978, the tyap-lyap gang fought for control of the street and launched an attack on Kontora, another compound. More than 50 tyap-lyap members armed with iron bars, daggers and even firearms attacked everyone indiscriminately in the other community, causing dozens of injuries and two deaths.
The following year, the judicial authorities prosecuted this youth gang with more than 100 people. During the investigation, it was discovered that when you see a cockroach, there is a nest of cockroaches in the dark - there are hundreds of such youths all over Kazan City. Gangs and the term Kazan phenomenon also emerged.
However, the Kazan phenomenon is just the origin of the crime wave. The situation in Kazan will be replicated in every city elsewhere and in the future.
The tyap-lyap gang is on trial
How terrifying is the Kazan phenomenon?
Youth gangs control the entire city. If a boy is not a gang member, then he is a lamb to be slaughtered; for girls, this represents a risk of rape. After tyap-lyap attacked the other community, no one even dared to call the police because they were worried about suffering more violent retaliation from these young people.
In a documentary about the Kazan phenomenon, a woman recalled: "To this day, if there is someone behind me when waiting at a red light, I will let him pass first and then wait for another light. This is what that horrible period taught me Habits left behind."
So why is the government not cracking down effectively?
During the Soviet period, Alexander Avvakumov, who served as deputy director of the Criminal Investigation Service of Tatarstan, explained that at that time, the Soviet Union did not have laws to arrest gang members and could not form effective prosecutions of organized crime. It was not until the new "Criminal Code of the Russian Federation" in 1997 that Organized crime has been comprehensively revised.
The rampant crime in Kazan has also attracted reports from Western media.
In a 1989 New York Times report on street crime in Kazan, Savely O. Tesis, a police expert on youth crime in the Kazan region, said:
"The problems of young people reflect changes in contemporary values. "
At the same time, he also blamed the problem on the economic downturn, increasing divorce rate and moral decay after Gorbachev's reforms.
The title "Boy's Oath" itself has a certain criminal "Renaissance" flavor.
The boy's oath is a common "offensive and defensive alliance" in gang culture. This is reflected in organized crime in various countries and is not uncommon. However, in specific practice, the Kazan youth gangs in the Soviet period showed a unique Russian Criminal Tradition. The core essence of the
Boys' Pledge is to maintain the organization by isolating the connection between the normal world and the organizational world as much as possible through some underground moral rules of "not lying to gang members" and "not cooperating with judicial authorities", supplemented by the threat of violence. Safety.
The existence of this kind of oath also enhances the pride of organization members and gives them a feeling of being a group elite. For example, in the show, they call gang members people, and those who don't belong to gangs are pigs.
For another example, boys who join the Kazan gang must go through a brutal initiation ceremony of beatings to prove their determination. After
joins a gang, they will be required to skip school because there are daily boxing training and brainwashing education, because in the Soviet street laws, only by becoming strong enough can you defend the community.
Andre's initiation ceremony in "Boy's Pledge" is to fight Marat.
These details can be traced back to the 18th century, when the bandits here had already formed a complete gangster tradition.
For example, gang members have nicknames, must pay money to the public treasury regularly, use jargon in life, and have tattoos. These practices are to prevent people who join gangs from returning to normal society.
After the establishment of the Soviet Union, a large number of people were sent to labor camps. In the public sphere, traditional Slavic gangs disappeared, but this culture fermented in the labor camps and became the only survival law in the underground world.
During the Stalin period, whether you were a political prisoner, a criminal prisoner, or someone who was sent to a labor camp for violating regulations, the biggest problem you faced was learning to get along with career criminals in a labor camp.
Around 1937 to 1945, the Soviet government abandoned the policy of reforming prisoners and instead implemented a policy of using prisoners to control prisoners, that is, using a small number of prisoners to control another group of prisoners.
In this case, career criminals are the ruling class in the dark jungle.
Among them, the ones with the highest status are the criminal thieves. They are basically serious criminals and are familiar with the Russian criminal tradition, so they are respected in the labor camp world. They do not have to work. Their main task is to ensure that other prisoners can complete their work. At the same time, they also Lower-level prisoners can be ordered to rob other prisoners, especially political prisoners, to enrich themselves with daily necessities and build interest alliances.
In this world, tattoos are the collar badges of prisoners, and criminal status can be directly interpreted from the tattoos. In order to gain a higher status in the labor camp world, young prisoners may even escape from prison and then be caught on their own initiative, thereby increasing their sentences and gaining status.
In this underground world, it is the thief court that maintains the operation of society. For those who betray or violate the rules, corporal punishment is inevitable and extremely bloody. These practices were re-shown in the subsequent Russian crime wave. Due to the length, I won’t list it here. Interested friends can check out danzig baldaev’s series of picture books, which contain extremely informative information.
If it weren’t for Khrushchev, this set of rules would have continued to operate in the labor camp world.
In order to de-Stalinize and loosen political and ideological restrictions, Khrushchev implemented a thaw policy. The Gulag system was also closed as a political link, and a large number of prisoners returned to society.
At a time when government control was strong, the Soviet gang had no room for development. But at the time of Gorbachev's reforms, the gangs ushered in real political opportunities and began to gradually enter the country.
Anti-alcohol policies allowed Soviet gangs to accumulate a large amount of wealth through the moonshine industry. The Cooperative Law, which was intended to promote the development of the private economy, allowed gangs to become legal enterprises through cooperatives (60% of cooperative employees were criminals with criminal records) , a large number of idle soldiers who returned from Afghanistan have also become the reserve army of the gangs.
At such a precarious moment, on August 4, 1989, the Second Session of the Soviet People's Congress passed the "Resolution on Strengthening the Fight against Organized Crime". This was the first time that the Soviet Union recognized the existence of organized crime within its territory.
At this time, there were less than 3 years left before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The first season of "A Boy's Vow" has ended, and the current plot ends when they are imprisoned for the first time.
It can be foreseen that this gang will commit more murderous crimes in order to snatch resources in future plots. History has already given the answer to this point.
Some of them died on the streets, while others rose to prominence. Those lucky few became part of the national system, infiltrated, blended, and integrated into one.
This is the cruel truth after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and it is also the painful memory shared by the people of the former Soviet Union.
"A Boy's Oath" showed this, thus gaining widespread sympathy in the CIS region, and even young Ukrainians went to watch pirated copies despite violating government bans.
For those who hate this show, it is a drama that romanticizes violence, but for those who love it and are crazy about it, people have more mixed feelings about it. Perhaps it is just like the smell of Mandelstam's poem:
...
Your spine has been broken
My poignant century
With a hollow smile
You are cruel and weak
Looking back
Like an aging beast
Looking at its own paw prints
...
——Osim Mandelstam's "Century"
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