Soviet prisoners: criminal tattoo as "secret code language"

I posted about Russian Criminal Tattoo encyclopaedia and related small exhibit of photographs "Bodies As Text" in London.

The photo above I spotted recently in Saatchi gallery (London) as part of broader exhibit of Russian (ex-Soviet) art.

More about the author Sergei Vasiliev here: "Taken between 1989 and 1993, Sergei Vasiliev’s photographs of Soviet prisoners document the secret code language of criminals in the USSR, evidence of a gritty spirit of picaresque resistance within a violently repressive culture."