 | | | | |
| anasha | | | hashish.
|
| apparat | | | the name denoting the entire civil service during the
Soviet era (The elite membership of the apparat was known as the
nomenklatura--see below.)
|
| apparatchik | | | a member of the Soviet civil service. Also often used
indiscriminately to cover the nomenklatura as well.
|
| avtoritet | | | authority. Leader of one of the new commercial-oriented
mafiya groups.
|
| baklany | | | punks.
|
| bandity | | | common word used among police referring to hoodlums.
|
| bespredel | | | disorder; literally beyond limits.
|
| blat | | | old Soviet term for contacts in the right places. When someone
manages to use his contacts to get a favor or a position. It is done
'poblatu.'
|
| blatnoi/blatnye | | | a catch-all term used by hoodlums to refer to
themselves and their ('blatnoi';) way of life. The gangs' answer to police
description of them as 'bandity.'
|
| brat na pont | | | to bluff (take someone by storm).
|
| bratski krug | | | circle of brothers; said to be main inner structure of
vorovskoi mir; (also) 'bratskaya semyorka' (the brotherhood of seven).
|
| brodyagi | | | a criminal caste below vor, vagabonds;
(leaders-in-training).
|
| byki | | | bodyguards;
(literally bulls).
|
| chainik | | | prison bully (literally cheap teapot, like the ones used in
Russian prisons).
|
| choirs | | | name for gangs in St Petersburg in last century; they met at
taverns.
|
| chorniye smoridiny | | | or simply Chorniye (blacks): nickname for
Caucasians.
|
| dan | | | taxes (tribute), collected by racketeers.
|
| fartsovchik | | | black-market dealer, usually young, dealing in
street-corner sales. Appeared in 1980s.
|
| gastralyor | | | guest criminal (from other cities).
|
| grokhnut | | | to shoot; literally to bang (sound); one of several slang
words for killing; others below.
|
| kaif | | | 'high' as on drugs. A Central Asian word.
|
| kalol | | | injection (drugs).
|
| kit' | | | big fish/crime target; literally whale.
|
| klichka | | | nickname/handle.
|
| lavit kaif | | | to get high (on drugs), 'V. kaifu' means feeling
pleasure at being high.
|
| lavrushniki | | | another nickname for Caucasian vory (see above).
|
| limoni/tri limona | | | one lemon (million rubles)/three lemons (three
million).
|
| loshadka | | | in drug trade. Methadon (Russian word for little horse or
hobby horse).
|
| lunakhod | | | police van; literally moonwalker.
|
| mafiya | | | generic term used across the Soviet Union since the 1970s to
denote Party barons accused of corruption, black market speculators or
sometimes just sections of society the speaker did not happen to like. By
1992, it carried an additional meaning to describe the groups of criminal
entrepreneurs and corrupt officials who came to prominence in the post-Soviet
era.
|
| makler | | | apartment broker/fixer - after German.
|
| maslinichnii mak | | | oily poppy. Drugs.
|
| ment | | | cop.
|
| moschenniki | | | swindlers.
|
| mussor | | | cop; literally garbage.
|
| na narakh | | | behind bars/in prison (zhoglo).
|
| na svobodye | | | free from prison, 'in freedom.'
|
| nayekhat | | | raid/apply gang pressure, extort; to collect dan literally
to run into/over.
|
| nomenklatura | | | the elite membership of the Soviet governing system, so
called because their names appear on the nomenklature or list of the most
loyal Party officials eligible for senior posts at home and overseas.
|
| obshchak | | | criminal treasury.
|
| opuschiny (opuskat') | | | persons who've been raped in prison; literally,
to lower.
|
| pakhan | | | chief of band; crime boss.
|
| panama | | | dummy company/in bureaucracy.
|
| patsani | | | young lads/warriors who make up criminal gangs.
|
| pika | | | slang word for a knife. This is slang for the whole former
Soviet Union.
|
| po ponyatiyam | | | way of offering security services; gentlemen's
agreement.
|
| podkhod | | | coronation of vor; literally approach.
|
| posadit' na piku | | | to stab to death, cut up with a knife; literally to
put on a spike.
|
| prishit' | | | to kill; literally to sew up; to shoot dead.
|
| prishli mne kapustu | | | what you say if someone owes you money (send me
the cabbage).
|
| razboiniki | | | warriors of gang.
|
| razborka | | | settling of accounts/judgment, often violent.
|
| sborschiki | | | collectors who pick up taxes from traders at markets.
|
| sdelat kozyol | | | turn into a goat, or lower class, as in prison.
Homo-sexual slave.
|
| shalit | | | make mischief.
|
| skhodka | | | criminal assembly/council of vory.
|
| shpana | | | group of hoodlums.
|
| sidet' | | | to be in prison; literally to sit.
|
| stakan | | | 'glass' measurement of drugs.
|
| strelka | | | council or appointment; literally little arrow, after small
hand on watch.
|
| suki | | | turncoats, scabs, traitors,; literally bitches.
|
| tat | | | thief.
|
| telet chefir | | | prison expression for making strong tea. Also to have
nothing left.
|
| torpedo | | | contract killer.
|
| tsekhovik/tsekhoviki | | | owner of black-market underground factories.
|
| tusovka | | | slice, as in the slice of society occupied by golden youth and
young mafiosi.
|
| ubrat | | | to kill, waste; literally take out.
|
| uryt | | | to kill; literally to bury.
|
| vor | | | thief, lord of crime. Once generic term for thief or foreign
enemy.
|
| vor v zakonye | | | thief in law. Full name of leader of old Russian
gang.
|
| vorovskoe blago | | | criminal welfare. What every vor must
defend.
|
| vorovskoi mir | | | thieves world.
|
| vzyat | | | to harass/rob; literally take, as in vzyat lariok (hit up a
kiosk). Also means in slang, to take bribes.
|
| zamochit | | | to kill with a beating; literally to piss on.
|
| zapodlo | | | shady business, underground commerce.
|
| | | |
