The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia

Galeotti, a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations in Prague and author of Spetsnaz: Russia’s Special Forces, provides an expansive historical overview of organized crime in Russia from the 18th century to the present. The book’s earliest sections follow the exploits of Vanka Kain, “the scourge of Moscow in the 1730s and 1740s,” who became a Russian folk hero—a so-called “‘honest thief’” who made no pretense about who he was. Galeotti draws clear parallels between Kain and the modern underworld, contending that the essential arc of Kain’s career—a criminal who ends up corrupting the officials who think they control him—is one still being played out in post-Soviet Russia. This arc is exemplified by Dmitry Zakharchenko, the former head of Russia’s anti-corruption agency, who was arrested in 2016 after police found $120 million in cash in his Moscow apartment. Unlike the Italian mafia, Galeotti writes, the vory (as the Russian mob became known in early 20th century) are “often not especially organized” and have no real traditions. Rather, Galeotti sees “coercion, corruption, and compliance” as key characteristics of a distinctly Russian way of crime that can be traced through the centuries. This is a cogent and accessible history that anyone interested in organized crime in general, and the Russian variety in particular, will want to pick up. (May)