Russian Tattoo - NON CRIMINAL

[0o_higanbana_o0]

Hello, yes, me again ^^

I'd like to thank all the kind helpers, I have learned so many things thanks to my previous post. Stay awesome, LD community.

I hit another snag in my story, but I'm afraid this one will be a lot harder to answer.
I'm still giving it a try, tho.

So. In canon, the Russian man working for the KGB in the early 1960s has a

Comments

[francis_drake]

The actor's tattoo doesn't make any sense in Russian. Russian word for hammer is “молот” (molot) or “молоток” (molotok), and nothing like it is written on the tattoo. The last two symbols read as a capital R (the glyph for that is Р in Russian) and a small kh (for which the glyph is x). The things to the left don't read as letters, and the closest to letters would be two sh's in a row (for which the glyph is Ш). That makes “ШШРх” or shshrkh, which isn't even remotely a Russian word.

Now, I haven't done any reading on the matter, but, coming from the Russian culture, I'd say a tattoo unrelated to prison culture, and especially on a government agent, seems to me bloody unlikely.

[reapermum]

Given that the actor has family connectios to Russia, I would doubt that it's meaningless. But it may have person meaning, such as family initials.

[0o_higanbana_o0]

Thanks for your input!

[0o_higanbana_o0]

Thank you SO much for your contribution.
I seems highly unlikely to me too, so I'll either have to come up with a realistic way to explain it (and so far, I'm stuck. As a government agent, he's not going to have KGB related blason tattooed on himself, that would be some obfuscating level of stupidity. The character is supposed to have gotten in the KGB real young and became one of their top assets really fast, so I can't squeeze a prison stay in there. SMH), or just, write if off as not really existing.
HRRRNNN.

[francis_drake]

I've actually run a brief google search and can add this.

Until the rise of the underground tattoo culture of the 80's, most places where one would get a tattoo were the military or prison. Military tattoos have a distinguishable visual style which I can't decribe now, but can give a couple of photos here and here.

Again, the one in the picture doesn't look like anything from Russian culture.

[0o_higanbana_o0]

THIS IS SO INTERESTING.
Thank you so much!
I'm really interested in the matter of military tattoo, if you ever have anything else I'd be really interested. Thank you SO MUCH for your contribution, this a thoroughly interesting subject to me.

[rusquen]

The only Soviet non-criminal subculture I would personally associate with tattoos is seamen. They sometimes had anchor tattoos. Otherwise, from what I've managed to google on ru-net, a tattoo was pretty much a sign of underworld until around 70s-80s, at which point military and the marines started getting colourful tattoos denoting their ship/company/whatever. You can get an idea here: milita.jofo.ru/384840.html

And yes, I wouldn't be surprised if Stalin having a tattoo was due to his robbing banks in his youth. He certainly wouldn't display it after coming into power :D

Another consideration: it sounds like a horrible idea for a KGB agent to have a tattoo. Especially such a visible one. I mean, it makes him damn easy to recognize.

Re bonus point: It's really hard to tell from the picture, but I get a feeling it's in English. First letter looks like H (transcribed into Russian, the word would be ХАММЕР, translated - МОЛОТ or МОЛОТОК.)

[0o_higanbana_o0]

Tadaa ! We meet again, my friend! And again, you bring me the best answers

[rusquen]

You're welcome :)

About the infiltration story... Theoretically possible, I guess. But then he'd be either specializing at dealing with criminals for the rest of his life or going to great lengths to cover it up. I mean, for your average Soviet citizen, tattoo=criminal=danger, so people in every day life would notice automatically.

I remember a Soviet comedy, "Gentlemen of fortune", where a kindergarten teacher got sent to infiltrate a criminal gang because he looked exactly like their leader. He had to get tattoos to pass for him - but they somehow made them non-permanent. Not sure how realistic that is, because that was a) a comedy and b) 1970s. But you'd think KGB figured out a way not to mark their agent for life :D

Maybe it is better to pretend the tattoo doesn't exist :D

[0o_higanbana_o0]

Thanks a lot for everything, that's a lot of help.
Thanks for the info on the soviet comedy! I learned so many things today, thank you so much!

[rbfvid]

Tatoo would be unusual, but not unheard of. Agents and special ops soldiers that didn't have to go undercover sometimes tatooed squad/unit emblem, their name, blood type, etc. Basically just the same range of tatoos that all soldiers around the world make.

From the look of authors tatoo it could be a some abbreviation, probably with latin numbers in it.
There are too few Russian names starting with Ш (sh), so it' s unlikely to be initials (though it could be a non-russian name, if you like).

[0o_higanbana_o0]

Thanks for your input!

[rollsrolik]

О, попрактикуюсь в инглише) I want to do tatto)

[0o_higanbana_o0]

Russian tattoo, very interesting ! :)