Title: Gravestones of The Russian Mafia Source:
Sad and Useless Humor URL Source:http://www.sadanduseless.com/2015/02/russian-mob-gravestones/ Published:Aug 18, 2017 Author:Unknown Post Date:2017-08-18 16:09:20 by A Pole Keywords:Mafia, Russian, crime Views:7641 Comments:29
The gravestones look like the typical bad taste of the nouveau riche.
I kinda liked the first one, where the sculptor tried to show the wind blowing his tie aside, revealing his little pot belly more. Those buttons on his belly are stretched tight.
The first ones to emerge after the USSR died weren't very smart. They were all former Party "apparatchiks" that owned their position to family connections,not ability or shrewdness. That was enough under the old Soviet police state system were EVERYBODY was afraid to even question authority,never mind take a few of the shitheads down,but the second wave were a lot more sophisticated as well as brutal.
I ended up chasing one of these asshats down the street in Moscow on my first trip there. SOB ran a redlight and almost ran over me and the woman I was walking with,not to mention some other women and children. Not having ever been a Soviet subject that knew to show the proper respect to anyone in a Mercedes,I kicked his car as he went by. SOB stopped right in the intersection and bailed out of his car to come after me. Imagine his surprise when he looked up and I was coming after him. He panicked and ran right past his car while making his getaway,leaving it parked right there in the intersection with the door open.
Never did catch him.
By the time all these goobers were killed off and the actual criminals took over,they were a lot more experienced and a lot more dangerous. Street crime around the Red Square area of Moscow practically disappeared. You just didn't see any of the roaming gangs of gypsy children playing "distraction snatch and run" games with tourists because they KNEW that if the Mafiya caught them they would be killed. The second wave Mafiya pretty much took over and ran all the restaurants and bars,as well as all the prostitution,drugs,and every other scam related to tourist areas,they they took crime against foreign tourists VERY seriously. As long as you remained on Ararat or one of the other main streets around Red Square,you were golden. Get a couple of blocks away make the mistake of going into a locals bar for some "local atmosphere",and you were in deep doo-doo.
Truth to tell,I really liked almost every Russian I ever met on my two trips there. VERY friendly and helpful people who were curious about life in the west and helpful in any way they could be. What used to crack me up more than anything else was EVERY Russian I met told me "You can't trust Russians! Be very careful!" I guess this comes from growing up in the bad old days of the USSR where two or even three families lived in the same apartment and shared the 1 kitchen and 1 bathroom,and everybody wanted to inform on everyone else for the rewards of a better job,or maybe even their own apartment.
Make no mistake about it,there is no such critter as a communist government that doesn't create a police state,complete with secret police as well as secret trials.
Hell,the first time I went there they were still using old Soviet "floor clerks" that sat at a desk at the elevator and stairs on each floor,and wrote down who went to each room,what time they got there,and what time they left. Most of the priests were KBG agents,and there were people who kept lists of who went to church and how often. These always seemed to be old women,and they knew they couldn't stop and ask the tourists anything,but if it looked like you were wearing Russian clothing or they heard you speak Russian,they would be demanding your documents and asking you who you were visiting. These women were no where in sight the next time I went there.
One friend of mine was a Professor at a college in a medium-sized town that I visited on my second trip,and he told me his father had been a Major in the KBG,and had tapped his own telephone at home so he could monitor who his children were talking with and what they were talking about. That's how he got into electronics. Smuggled in magazines from Germany taught him how to build his own radio so he could hear Radio Free Europe and rock and roll. He himself later became a Signal Corps Lt in East Germany. He was also a major gun nut. He had a hardback book that was probably the Russian version of "Guns of the World",and he knew it so well when he would ask me what guns I owned and I would tell him,he would say "Oh,yes! That is on page xxx!" and flip right to it. I kept trying to get him and his wife (they were both college professors and had summers off) to come to America and visit with me so I could take him to gun ranges so could shoot all the guns he had just dreamed of shooting. He died a few years ago.Probably from drinking the vodka he made in his bathtub and sold to others.
BTW,I took several copies of The Shotgun News to Russia with me on both trips,and made sure to visit Russian gun shops and drop them off. In case you don't know,Russia and the United States are the only two nations in the world that have Constitutions guaranteeing citizens the right to keep and own guns.