Although many point to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the “free market free-for-all” that followed as the real beginnings of ROC, the origins of the country’s criminal culture can actually be traced back to imperial Russia. A small group of thieves began operating as a secret criminal society called Vorovskoy Mir, meaning “The Thieves’ World.” In imperial Russia, virtually everything belonged to the czar; thus, stealing became the mode du jour of making a statement against the oppressive regime. In early Russian society, “the only way to revolt. . . .was to
become a criminal.”
The citizens of the Thieves’ World—known as the vory v zakone, or
“thieves-in-law”—soon soon developed their own honor code, which emphasized loyalty to one another and resistance to the czar. The central tenets of this code were:
