One particular professional milieu that has gone largely ignored in these reports, however, is Russia's colorful crime bosses known as vory-v-zakone, or "thieves-in-law," who have their own behavior code, laws, courts, leaders and initiation rites.
Judging by the recent arrest of reputed thief-in-law Teimuraz Dzhalagoniya on shoplifting charges, the crisis may be hitting the criminal underworld hard as well.
Dzhalagoniya, who is also known by the nicknames "Timur" and "Chinchkhliya," was among the dozens of alleged crime bosses briefly detained on a swanky yacht on the Pirogovskoye Reservoir, several kilometers northeast of Moscow, in a dramatic July 2008 helicopter raid by police, according to the web site PrimeCrime.ru, which tracks the goings-on of prominent vory.
"Chinchkhliya" means "brazen" in Georgian, according to Interfax.
It's unclear whether it was a commitment to the thief's life or declining financial fortunes that led Dzhalagoniya purportedly to attempt to shoplift a bottle of wine last week from a Perekryostok budget supermarket on Ulitsa Golubinskaya, on the city's southwestern outskirts.
Dzhalagoniya, 48, was detained by police at around 3:30 p.m. on April 9 for trying to lift the bottle of wine, Izvestia reported.
Indicating the suspect's possible expensive tastes, an unidentified law enforcement source told RIA-Novosti that it was a "high-quality" bottle of wine worth around 5,000 rubles, Vesti.ru reported.
Citing a law enforcement source, Interfax described it as an elitny, or "elite," bottle of wine.
If charged and convicted of simple theft, Dzhalagoniya faces up to two years in prison. If prosecutors add an aggravating factor — such as conspiracy — a conviction could result in a five-year sentence.
PrimeCrime.ru describes Dzhalagoniya as a native of the Georgian town of Batumi who has done time for different crimes.
According to the web site, when police stormed the vor yacht party last year Dzhalagoniya was under the influence of some sort of narcotics and quickly downed some cognac to make it look like he was drunk, rather than high.
He then stripped down to his underwear to show his tattoos proving his status as a thief-in-law, PrimeCrime.ru reported.
The report cites absolutely no sources whatsoever, so for all I know it could be completely fabricated.
It does, however, hint there is a video of this floating around somewhere on the Internet. I haven't been able to track down such a video, so if any readers see one, please drop me a note.
There are around 1,200 thieves-in-law in Russia, a "well-informed" Interior Ministry source told Interfax earlier this month, about 60 percent of whom are natives of Georgia.
The Interfax report came out on April 1, so maybe the state-run news agency was just having a lark.
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