Mark Galeotti, Honorary Professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies
Mark Galeotti is an Honorary Professor at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, as well as a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute of International Relations Prague and previously head of its Centre for European Security.
He is an expert on the Russia Mafia. ‘I specialise in fairly murky and morally dubious subjects’, he says.
In The Vory he brilliantly describes the history of Russian criminals from the 18th century to the present day. Thieves are mythologised in Russia, much in the way the mafia are in American cinema, and their music and slang are widespread. Mark Galeotti cuts through the legends to get to the real story.
His is the first English-language book to document the men who emerged from the gulags to become Russia’s much-feared crime class: the vory v zakone.
To understand power in contemporary Russia, this is a must read.
Misha Glenny, author of McMafia