RusCan2013
Active member
Back in my introduction, I mentioned that Russian city of Ulyanovsk where I come from is a high crime area. That includes adults, the mafia and all
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI5VdLIRN98"]Russian mafia attacks a club - YouTube[/ame]
But also, what's much worse - kids. Child gangs is something Ulyanovsk is sadly known for in Russia and has been for years.
Two videos talk about it:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJTB6FGZr8s"]Criminal Ulyanovsk - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raON4dxhF5g"]Детские банды - Kids gang.flv - YouTube[/ame]
Ulyanovsk mother scan no longer be silent
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gptzGD4UvdM"]Детские банды поражают жестокостью - YouTube[/ame]
about women writing letters to Putin: "Our sons are dying in street wars"
The whole city is unofficially divided between several gangs numbering in the hundreds of young boys.
What's really sad is, these boys genuinely think they are tough badasses. They don't see how they're being manipulated. I've heard stories from my family's old friends in Ulyanovsk, how, at their local school, on the soccer field, a car drives up, some guys who certainly look like mobsters climb out and a circle of young thugs from the school quickly surrounds them, waiting for instructions for next day, drugs to sell, somebody to beat up, or maybe even kill, whatever.
It used to be a great city. A aircraft-and-ship-building center
But then, USSR fell apart, the economy crashed. And now, there is nothing. Just poverty, unemployment, addiction, and violence.
A boy walks to school in the morning in his apartment building, stepping over a puddle of blood, where somebody had been murdered the night before
That's life over there.
So many young lives lost in senseless violence
Local policeman showing his injuries after trying to break up a fight between two large groups of knife-wielding youths
Amidst all this, more little ones growing up
I cannot help, but wonder, how many of these four friends will survive to age 20...
Government only admitted something was wrong in 2006, after a night-time fight involving over 100 youths at an empty square, where two young boys were killed, and over 20 had been hospitalised with stab or gunshot wounds.
Later, a story emerged from the director of a local school who anonymously told journalists he had been paying a local youth gang 5,000 rubles (divide by 30 for dollar figure) a month for "protection". He said when they came to him at first, he refused, laughed at them. Then, his office windows were hit by gunfire and a Molotov cocktail. He could not refuse anymore.
http://www.ogoniok.com/4982/2/
And there are countless stories.
Government is trying. They are trying to bring industries and jobs back to the city. Subsidizing education for local youths. But, the local police and officials are all bought by the mafia
and the mafia has no interest in any positive result here: boys turning away from crime means loss of a cheap and expendable work and fighting force for them. They'd built a nice lifestyle off it already, expensive cars, good suits
Why would they want to lose that...
Just like Sergei Tsapok
the mobster in Krasnodar region in Southern Russia, who is now, fortunately, in prison, who controlled the town of Kushevskaya, with his gang. They recruited local teens, 16, 15, 14, even 13 years olds to do their dirty work. The system existed for 15 years. For 15 years the whole town was held in terror by the Tsapok gang. He had managed to install his mother as Mayor, his brother as police chief, and his brother-in-law as regional legislature representative. By the time he got busted, he was himself going to run for Duma, the Federal parliament, and locals would have voted for him, would have been too scared not to. But, he went too far. Had a local farmer and his family, including three kids, murdered, their throats cut, because they refused to pay him protection money. There was an outcry. Federal investigation, arrest, etc.
In Ulyanovsk, the whole city is like that. Each district is like Kushevskaya... I don't know what could change it at this point...
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI5VdLIRN98"]Russian mafia attacks a club - YouTube[/ame]
But also, what's much worse - kids. Child gangs is something Ulyanovsk is sadly known for in Russia and has been for years.
Two videos talk about it:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJTB6FGZr8s"]Criminal Ulyanovsk - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raON4dxhF5g"]Детские банды - Kids gang.flv - YouTube[/ame]
Ulyanovsk mother scan no longer be silent
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gptzGD4UvdM"]Детские банды поражают жестокостью - YouTube[/ame]
about women writing letters to Putin: "Our sons are dying in street wars"
The whole city is unofficially divided between several gangs numbering in the hundreds of young boys.

What's really sad is, these boys genuinely think they are tough badasses. They don't see how they're being manipulated. I've heard stories from my family's old friends in Ulyanovsk, how, at their local school, on the soccer field, a car drives up, some guys who certainly look like mobsters climb out and a circle of young thugs from the school quickly surrounds them, waiting for instructions for next day, drugs to sell, somebody to beat up, or maybe even kill, whatever.

It used to be a great city. A aircraft-and-ship-building center


But then, USSR fell apart, the economy crashed. And now, there is nothing. Just poverty, unemployment, addiction, and violence.
A boy walks to school in the morning in his apartment building, stepping over a puddle of blood, where somebody had been murdered the night before

That's life over there.
So many young lives lost in senseless violence

Local policeman showing his injuries after trying to break up a fight between two large groups of knife-wielding youths


Amidst all this, more little ones growing up

I cannot help, but wonder, how many of these four friends will survive to age 20...
Government only admitted something was wrong in 2006, after a night-time fight involving over 100 youths at an empty square, where two young boys were killed, and over 20 had been hospitalised with stab or gunshot wounds.
Later, a story emerged from the director of a local school who anonymously told journalists he had been paying a local youth gang 5,000 rubles (divide by 30 for dollar figure) a month for "protection". He said when they came to him at first, he refused, laughed at them. Then, his office windows were hit by gunfire and a Molotov cocktail. He could not refuse anymore.
http://www.ogoniok.com/4982/2/
And there are countless stories.
Government is trying. They are trying to bring industries and jobs back to the city. Subsidizing education for local youths. But, the local police and officials are all bought by the mafia

and the mafia has no interest in any positive result here: boys turning away from crime means loss of a cheap and expendable work and fighting force for them. They'd built a nice lifestyle off it already, expensive cars, good suits

Why would they want to lose that...
Just like Sergei Tsapok

the mobster in Krasnodar region in Southern Russia, who is now, fortunately, in prison, who controlled the town of Kushevskaya, with his gang. They recruited local teens, 16, 15, 14, even 13 years olds to do their dirty work. The system existed for 15 years. For 15 years the whole town was held in terror by the Tsapok gang. He had managed to install his mother as Mayor, his brother as police chief, and his brother-in-law as regional legislature representative. By the time he got busted, he was himself going to run for Duma, the Federal parliament, and locals would have voted for him, would have been too scared not to. But, he went too far. Had a local farmer and his family, including three kids, murdered, their throats cut, because they refused to pay him protection money. There was an outcry. Federal investigation, arrest, etc.
In Ulyanovsk, the whole city is like that. Each district is like Kushevskaya... I don't know what could change it at this point...