What book(s) are you reading currently? - Page 268

Botelio · April 19th, 2019, 03:09 PM

I'm now reading Mark Galeotti's "Vory: Russia's Super Mafia." I'm enjoying it very much.

The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia review – a kleptocracy in the making
Oliver Bullough

Mon 9 Apr 2018 06.59 BST

Mark Galeotti’s timely account of the Russian underworld charts its rise from Soviet-era gangsters to Kremlin collaborators under Putin

I once met a former dissident who spent eight miserable years in a Soviet labour camp. While there, he contracted tuberculosis and ended up in an isolation centre, a prison within a prison – a place of danger and squalor even by the standards of the Soviet camps.

Kirill was a Muscovite, intellectual and Jewish, all characteristics likely to attract special treatment from the prison guards and their stooges, who he still called by the prison term “bitches”. His life was saved, however, from the unlikeliest of directions. A vor-v-zakone – a “thief-in-law” Soviet mafia boss – offered him protection in exchange for conversation and games of chess.

It is no exaggeration to say that the thief’s protection saved Kirill’s life and that he was intrigued by his saviour’s motivation. They could barely have been more different, but they did share a principle: they refused to cooperate with the Soviet government. Dissidents boycotted the government out of liberal idealism, the thieves from ancient tradition. They considered themselves to be honest – it was the world that was bent. They earned what they had with fists and cunning: they had no time for the crooks in uniforms who used laws to get their way.

Kirill’s tale was my introduction to Russia’s underworld, which Mark Galeotti brilliantly describes in The Vory, his history of Russian criminals from the 18th century to the present day. Thieves are mythologised in Russia, much in the way the mafia are in American cinema, and their music and slang are widespread. Galeotti cuts through the legends, to get to the real story.

The thieves emerged in tsarist times, but it was the Soviet camps that forged their subculture – Galeotti wittily refers to it as a “gangster archipelago” – as mafiosi from around the country got to know each other, exchanging methods and contacts. During the Stalin-era heyday of the Gulag, they were untouchable, too powerful for the prison guards to deal with. Galeotti’s account of what happens next rather undermines Kirill’s idea of the thieves as proto-dissidents, however.

After Stalin’s death, most camp inmates were released, giving the authorities more time to focus on the gang leaders. The collaborators – the “bitches” – were empowered to persecute them, which they did with extreme prejudice, until the code of non-cooperation was broken. Kirill’s friend must have been a rare outlier, because few thieves still lived by the code by the late 1970s. By the end of the Soviet Union, the criminal world and the security services – the chekists – were interpenetrated.

Once the thieves had discarded their code of honour, and the chekists had stopped pretending to be honest, this became a mutually profitable connection, with important consequences for what Russia would become. The thieves’ smuggling made up for the failures of the Soviet economy and their networks allowed KGB men to make money. After the collapse of 1991, only two groups had the confidence and contacts to seize the opportunity: the thieves and the chekists, and increasingly there was no distinction between them.

Q&A
Does Russia present a credible threat to the UK?

“Sometime around the turn of the 21st century, state-building thieves and criminalised statesmen met in the middle,” Galeotti writes. “Under Putin, the real currency is not the rouble, but political power, and mere money and property are at best something held in trust.”

In Soviet times, the authorities used thieves to move things around, to supply booze for parties and to find “deficit” goods for cities that the plan had neglected. Now the Kremlin relies on thieves to fill more significant roles. The hackers who targeted the US election are thieves in a new guise: patriotically undermining foreign political systems one day, stealing credit card numbers the next. The men who undermined Ukrainian rule in Crimea quickly went back to the rackets that were their day job once Russia’s control was secured.

Galeotti’s book adds vital texture to the description of Russia as a kleptocracy. He sees it as a country where there is no meaningful distinction between crime, politics and law enforcement. All three are versions of each other, with individuals playing different roles depending on the requirements of the moment. The Vory is a timely, readable and important text for anyone thinking of ways to restrict Russian influence over the west and to punish Russia’s leadership for its crimes.

In his final chapter, Galeotti quotes a Russian friend as asking him: “Why do you in Britain hate our mafia in Russia but love them at home?” In a month when British ministers have been lining up to denounce the influence of oligarchs that their party has accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds from, it is an important question. There is no honour among Russia’s thieves and it is past time that we woke up to that fact.

**sillyBus** · April 19th, 2019, 03:11 PM

After years of putting it off, I am finally reading DUNE.

**jomama** · April 22nd, 2019, 01:03 AM

The Raven by Ann Eskridge

**Meini Again** · April 23rd, 2019, 02:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sillyBus

After years of putting it off, I am finally reading DUNE.

DON'T.....

**Arturo2nd** · May 5th, 2019, 07:40 PM

I am reading A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History by Nicholas Wade. Chapter 6 finally answered the question of why hierarchical structures and private property won out over the egalitarian structure that prevails in hunter gatherer societies for me. The answer lies in the necessity of organizing larger groups of people. Simple kinship relations are no longer sufficient, despite the fact that kinship and tribal structures continue to influence and plague all forms of larger states.

Socialism continues to be the dream for us who long for a return to the egalitarian past. Once we moved into larger settlements, kinship and social bonds were insufficient to organize the men for warfare. Hierarchy was necessary, and make no mistake, larger and richer societies need to defend themselves from outsiders. Given the continued prevalence of gangs and of family connections among elites, we can assume that some form of hierarchical social order will be required. The culture that succeeds at organizing the next stage of human social development will be dominant. Assuming that we survive the looming environmental and climatological crises, of course.

Failure to appreciate the cultural dynamics of those countries still organized by tribal affiliations and attempting to install institutions based on rule of law has been a deadly mistake in the foreign policy of the United States.

**Roubignol** · May 8th, 2019, 11:23 AM

Du contrat social (1762) from Genevan philosopher: Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
(In English: The Social Contract).

The Social Contract helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in Europe, especially in France. The Social Contract argued against the idea that monarchs were divinely empowered to legislate. Rousseau asserts that only the people, who are sovereign, have that all-powerful right.

IMO, that's a book to be read to all the people in the world.
Today a lot of nations have forgotten the Rousseau's spirit.

**jesegr** · May 10th, 2019, 05:01 PM

Shardik by Richard Adams

I've had this one on my to be read pile since 2012, so I figured it was time to get around to it.

J J · May 26th, 2019, 11:57 PM

Having finally found the time to read my Xmas present from my son, I’m currently reading “A bikers life”. The autobiography of tv presenter (mainly motorcycling programmes) Henry Cole. It contains some the best descriptions I’ve read on the actuality of drug addiction.

**deepsepia** · May 27th, 2019, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Botelio

“Sometime around the turn of the 21st century, state-building thieves and criminalised statesmen met in the middle,” Galeotti writes.

Galeotti has a way with a clever turn of phrase -- listen to him on a podcast and you can tell that he's really proud of them-- but this is an admirably concise description of what happened to the idea of liberal democracy, around the world.

We tend to focus more on one side: the criminalised statesmen, Berlusconi, Trump etc . . . but Galleoti is right on target that they met an opposite number, organized crime so ambitious that it actually has interest in government policy and statecraft.

I'm a big fan of Galleotti, he writes about important subjects, which are hard to write about.

**DrSerizawa** · May 27th, 2019, 10:26 PM

Possessed - The True Story of the Most Famous Exorcism of Modern Time

Written by Thomas Allen, this is the case that William Peter Blatty used as the basis for The Exorcist. It's very detailed, as Allen managed to get hold of a diary written by one of the priests involved and also interviewed all of the living witnesses at the time the book was written.

I'm still not sure quite what happened to the young boy (Blatty had to change the boy to a young girl to protect the identity of the boy and the family), bit you are left with the distinct impression that something strange and quite unpleasant happened.

April 22nd, 2019, 01:03 AM	#2673
jomama Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Living in Silliness Posts: 29,873 Thanks: 3,498,575 Thanked 345,375 Times in 29,987 Posts	The Raven by Ann Eskridge __________________ all the credit goes to original posters Avatar is Smeagol My Precious with Toilet Paper

May 8th, 2019, 11:23 AM	#2676
Roubignol Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Mice Planet Posts: 3,882 Thanks: 15,974 Thanked 29,727 Times in 3,826 Posts	Du contrat social (1762) Jean-Jacques Rousseau Du contrat social (1762) from Genevan philosopher: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (In English: The Social Contract). The Social Contract helped inspire political reforms or revolutions in Europe, especially in France. The Social Contract argued against the idea that monarchs were divinely empowered to legislate. Rousseau asserts that only the people, who are sovereign, have that all-powerful right. IMO, that's a book to be read to all the people in the world. Today a lot of nations have forgotten the Rousseau's spirit.

April 19th, 2019, 03:09 PM	#2671
Botelio Member Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 57 Thanks: 341 Thanked 567 Times in 52 Posts	I'm now reading Mark Galeotti's "Vory: Russia's Super Mafia." I'm enjoying it very much. The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia review – a kleptocracy in the making Oliver Bullough Mon 9 Apr 2018 06.59 BST Mark Galeotti’s timely account of the Russian underworld charts its rise from Soviet-era gangsters to Kremlin collaborators under Putin I once met a former dissident who spent eight miserable years in a Soviet labour camp. While there, he contracted tuberculosis and ended up in an isolation centre, a prison within a prison – a place of danger and squalor even by the standards of the Soviet camps. Kirill was a Muscovite, intellectual and Jewish, all characteristics likely to attract special treatment from the prison guards and their stooges, who he still called by the prison term “bitches”. His life was saved, however, from the unlikeliest of directions. A vor-v-zakone – a “thief-in-law” Soviet mafia boss – offered him protection in exchange for conversation and games of chess. It is no exaggeration to say that the thief’s protection saved Kirill’s life and that he was intrigued by his saviour’s motivation. They could barely have been more different, but they did share a principle: they refused to cooperate with the Soviet government. Dissidents boycotted the government out of liberal idealism, the thieves from ancient tradition. They considered themselves to be honest – it was the world that was bent. They earned what they had with fists and cunning: they had no time for the crooks in uniforms who used laws to get their way. Kirill’s tale was my introduction to Russia’s underworld, which Mark Galeotti brilliantly describes in The Vory, his history of Russian criminals from the 18th century to the present day. Thieves are mythologised in Russia, much in the way the mafia are in American cinema, and their music and slang are widespread. Galeotti cuts through the legends, to get to the real story. The thieves emerged in tsarist times, but it was the Soviet camps that forged their subculture – Galeotti wittily refers to it as a “gangster archipelago” – as mafiosi from around the country got to know each other, exchanging methods and contacts. During the Stalin-era heyday of the Gulag, they were untouchable, too powerful for the prison guards to deal with. Galeotti’s account of what happens next rather undermines Kirill’s idea of the thieves as proto-dissidents, however. After Stalin’s death, most camp inmates were released, giving the authorities more time to focus on the gang leaders. The collaborators – the “bitches” – were empowered to persecute them, which they did with extreme prejudice, until the code of non-cooperation was broken. Kirill’s friend must have been a rare outlier, because few thieves still lived by the code by the late 1970s. By the end of the Soviet Union, the criminal world and the security services – the chekists – were interpenetrated. Once the thieves had discarded their code of honour, and the chekists had stopped pretending to be honest, this became a mutually profitable connection, with important consequences for what Russia would become. The thieves’ smuggling made up for the failures of the Soviet economy and their networks allowed KGB men to make money. After the collapse of 1991, only two groups had the confidence and contacts to seize the opportunity: the thieves and the chekists, and increasingly there was no distinction between them. Q&A Does Russia present a credible threat to the UK? “Sometime around the turn of the 21st century, state-building thieves and criminalised statesmen met in the middle,” Galeotti writes. “Under Putin, the real currency is not the rouble, but political power, and mere money and property are at best something held in trust.” In Soviet times, the authorities used thieves to move things around, to supply booze for parties and to find “deficit” goods for cities that the plan had neglected. Now the Kremlin relies on thieves to fill more significant roles. The hackers who targeted the US election are thieves in a new guise: patriotically undermining foreign political systems one day, stealing credit card numbers the next. The men who undermined Ukrainian rule in Crimea quickly went back to the rackets that were their day job once Russia’s control was secured. Galeotti’s book adds vital texture to the description of Russia as a kleptocracy. He sees it as a country where there is no meaningful distinction between crime, politics and law enforcement. All three are versions of each other, with individuals playing different roles depending on the requirements of the moment. The Vory is a timely, readable and important text for anyone thinking of ways to restrict Russian influence over the west and to punish Russia’s leadership for its crimes. In his final chapter, Galeotti quotes a Russian friend as asking him: “Why do you in Britain hate our mafia in Russia but love them at home?” In a month when British ministers have been lining up to denounce the influence of oligarchs that their party has accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds from, it is an important question. There is no honour among Russia’s thieves and it is past time that we woke up to that fact.

April 19th, 2019, 03:11 PM	#2672
sillyBus Vintage Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 690 Thanks: 2,983 Thanked 10,355 Times in 645 Posts	After years of putting it off, I am finally reading DUNE.

May 5th, 2019, 07:40 PM	#2675
Arturo2nd Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2012 Location: Oakland, California, United States. I have a beautful view of the BART tracks and I-980 Posts: 8,955 Thanks: 103,061 Thanked 151,826 Times in 8,946 Posts	I am reading A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History by Nicholas Wade. Chapter 6 finally answered the question of why hierarchical structures and private property won out over the egalitarian structure that prevails in hunter gatherer societies for me. The answer lies in the necessity of organizing larger groups of people. Simple kinship relations are no longer sufficient, despite the fact that kinship and tribal structures continue to influence and plague all forms of larger states. Socialism continues to be the dream for us who long for a return to the egalitarian past. Once we moved into larger settlements, kinship and social bonds were insufficient to organize the men for warfare. Hierarchy was necessary, and make no mistake, larger and richer societies need to defend themselves from outsiders. Given the continued prevalence of gangs and of family connections among elites, we can assume that some form of hierarchical social order will be required. The culture that succeeds at organizing the next stage of human social development will be dominant. Assuming that we survive the looming environmental and climatological crises, of course. Failure to appreciate the cultural dynamics of those countries still organized by tribal affiliations and attempting to install institutions based on rule of law has been a deadly mistake in the foreign policy of the United States.

May 10th, 2019, 05:01 PM	#2677
jesegr Vintage Member Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 442 Thanks: 23,113 Thanked 5,889 Times in 438 Posts	Shardik by Richard Adams I've had this one on my to be read pile since 2012, so I figured it was time to get around to it.

May 26th, 2019, 11:57 PM	#2678
J J Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 237 Thanks: 3,688 Thanked 2,282 Times in 237 Posts	Having finally found the time to read my Xmas present from my son, I’m currently reading “A bikers life”. The autobiography of tv presenter (mainly motorcycling programmes) Henry Cole. It contains some the best descriptions I’ve read on the actuality of drug addiction.

May 27th, 2019, 10:26 PM	#2680
DrSerizawa Mad Scientist Join Date: May 2019 Location: In my lab, working on the oxygen destroyer Posts: 2,835 Thanks: 90,209 Thanked 48,114 Times in 2,842 Posts	Possessed - The True Story of the Most Famous Exorcism of Modern Time Written by Thomas Allen, this is the case that William Peter Blatty used as the basis for The Exorcist. It's very detailed, as Allen managed to get hold of a diary written by one of the priests involved and also interviewed all of the living witnesses at the time the book was written. I'm still not sure quite what happened to the young boy (Blatty had to change the boy to a young girl to protect the identity of the boy and the family), bit you are left with the distinct impression that something strange and quite unpleasant happened.