KGB tattoo?

[Lapa]

Originally Posted by willie777

Ok while I was on vacation in the summer of 2005 in canada, I noticed a guy with a KGB tattoo on his left forearm. I remember it being the sword and shield with a "ribbon" on it that said "KGB USSR" in russian. Is it a real KGB tattoo or is it just something the guy put on to look cool? The guy looked Russian and was in his 50s i guess.

Standard M69 issue tatoo for easy and immediate identification of agents in case of their untimely termination by oppositing secret services.

Marc

[willie777]

Good point, but as tretov said, wouldnt the tattoo increase the risk of termination?

[Sergei]

And was the guy looking for a job, any job - washing dishes or, perhaps, doing counter-espionage?
To be serious, a tatoo has always been a must among soviet 'non-political' prisoners, the typical designs being related to the cult of Motherhood (Ne Zabudu Mat' Rodnuiy, i.e. Will Never Forget My Dear Mother etc.). It was also popular among young army officers around the war time (1940's) who would often depict on their flesh a vertically positioned sword with the sharp end down and with a snake winding around it (do not know why). Those latter ones do look a bit like a KGB (or medical research ) symbol but I guess the meaning was different. A shield was also popular but the technology was not good enough to figure out what was written on the shield. A sailor (or a young person of anti-social disposition) from Odessa or Sevastopol would often have an anchor, some of those (I mean the anchors) were quite pretty. Just my own observations, may be well off the mark. Sergei.

Oh, by the way, among my friends who became officers in 1981-1982, no-one had a tatoo, even after Afghanistan. A different generation, I guess. Sergei.

[willie777]

the guy was probably half to 1 gen. before.

[Esteban_cool]

Originally Posted by Lapa

Standard M69 issue tatoo for easy and immediate identification of agents in case of their untimely termination by oppositing secret services.

Marc

I´m really ROTFLMAO right now after reading this. You managed to take out a good laugh from me, mon ami. Merci!

BTW, I rememberd Tolya from the movie "The Thief". He had some good stuff drawn on his skin.

Esteban

[desantnik]

I have an interesting Russian book published in 1992 called Imperiya Strakha, or Empire of Fear, that is full of line drawings illustrating representative Soviet prisoner and other tattoos, including their explanation of the symbology. There is not a single tattoo with anything resembling the KGB insignia, because it wouldn't have been really bright to do that.

I think this guy's tattoo is like those Americans that would get Chinese characters tattooed and then find out they actually meant something like "raisin bran" instead of "most cool warrior king".

[willie777]

To the best of my memory, i remember it being kgb. It is basically the KGB emblem, but instead of the letters on the emblem being ВЧК КГБ, it was КГБ СССР

[Nack]

Originally Posted by desantnik

I think this guy's tattoo is like those Americans that would get Chinese characters tattooed and then find out they actually meant something like "raisin bran" instead of "most cool warrior king".

Something like that always comes to mind when I see non-Chinese folk with those tatoos. Hope it happens often

[willie777]

Maybe the tattoo was a failed suicide attempt if the guy was in US military?

[Al-muell]

The only serious explaination that comes to my mind was that the guy got this tatoo on his de-mob as a KGB troops enlisted man...