Kazan phenomenon

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The Kazan phenomenon ( Russian Казанский Феномен ) is a term that was created in the 1980s to describe the delinquent youth movement in the Tatar capital Kazan . As early as the 1960s and 1970s, several criminal youth gangs formed there, which went from initially territorial battles between opposing gangs to larger crimes. These groups grew more and more and later formed organizations that operate across the region. The reasons for this lay in the political and social change, the social inequality as well as in the supraregional media participation.

term

In the 1980s, this term was formed to describe criminal activities by youth gangs in the Kazan city area, but also in many other Union cities. The origin of the term can be traced back to the attention generated by the media. Due to the special interest of local and other national journalists, the Kazan phenomenon also found its way into foreign literature describing criminal street gangs in the former Soviet Union .

Emergence

The problem of criminal youth gangs is considered to be particularly well researched in Kazan compared to other former Union cities. The general criminalization of Soviet society and the city's criminal history are considered to be one of the many factors that made Kazan the center of the criminal youth movement. In addition, there was migration and urban growth in the course of industrialization since 1950, which took place particularly in some cities in the Volga region . The newly created working-class quarters created territorial cohesion, especially among the young people in the individual districts. The lack of a social infrastructure was particularly evident in the provincial metropolitan areas. Social and political institutions such as the Komsomol did not meet the needs of the young people and therefore had little influence. The economic reforms of the 1960s favored the informal sector and created the informal economy. This gave rise to the so-called Racketeer [ing] bands, mostly made up of young people from a certain area. Another problem was the high number of Besprisorni [street children], who also banded together in street gangs .
Young generations react more sensitively to environmental factors, especially during puberty. The social change in the last years of the USSR intensified the psychological processes of adolescents and their identity crisis. The young people's insecurity was particularly noticeable in regions that also had to deal with questions of ethnic identity, such as the Tatars , Chuvashes and Kazakhs . In addition to the general decline in values, there were generational conflicts that arose from the confrontation of rural and urban values ​​in connection with industrial migration. Many of the migrants, however, stuck to some of their traditions, such as the strongly territorial struggles derewnja na derewnju ('village against village'), which principle they carried to their new places of residence. These territorial battles gradually became the main activity of the criminal youth gangs.
The social and political change, the lack of social infrastructure in the periphery of the country, the failings of the government and the psychological processes of the youth ensured that many adolescents sought protection in territorial peer groups that grew into criminal gangs.

Features and activities

In Kazan, a certain type of youth gang ( Kasanski Tip ) developed, which is also often used to describe traditional youth gangs in Russian-speaking countries. The best-known gangs included the Tjap-Ljap, Chadi Taktaš, Žilka, Pervaki and Boriskovy .
The groups spanned several generations and some existed for more than 20 years. One of the characteristics was the territorial character: starting from their apartment blocks, the young people formed larger associations by free will or coercion, which could extend over entire microrayons. After entry, only a free purchase was possible. In addition, there was the multi-ethnic composition and the different family origins of the members, who were mostly referred to as Gopniki . The majority were male members between the ages of 10 and 30. The groups also had a hierarchical structure based on age and criminal experience. The younger ones (10–13) were referred to as Shcheluchi / salagi , followed by the supery (14–16), molodje (17–19) and stariki (20–35). At the top were the so-called awtoritety (authorities), dedi or karolja (kings). The obschije dewochki were girls who were subject to group law. As tschuschpan youths were referred without band membership.
Their main activities included the territorial struggles against other groups, as well as the fundraising for the collective fund ( obschtschak ) for financial support. Later on, other more criminal activities followed. Alcohol and other drugs were banned, especially the younger ones. There was also a strict system of punishment.

Extent and development

The political and social changes had an impact on the structural development of the youth groups. During the industrialization period, the young people formed peer groups in the housing estates with a territorial awareness. With the subsequent development of the shadow economy up to the initiation of perestroika , these changed into more organized gangs with partly economic goals. In the 1980s, ⅓ of the male youth was a member of a youth gang, and Kazan was said to have been divided into more than 100 groups. During the period of political change, the informal sector was strengthened, which encouraged street crime and, above all, the emergence of territorial (racketeer) gangs. All forms of business in their field claimed these associations for themselves. The 1992 agreement “ we don't divide up the asphalt ” stabilized the situation, but at the end of the 1990s more than 20 larger gangs were recorded in Kazan.

Even today in Russia and in other former Union cities there are reports of criminal youth movements which developed from the events of the Kazan phenomenon or are comparable to them. In the mid-1980s, for example, the Kazan phenomenon was often reported to spread to other regions of the USSR. These included not only cities along the Volga ( Ulyanovsk , Wolschski , Tscheboksary , Dzerzhinsk , Yoshkar-Ola ), but also other cities of the RSFSR ( Morschansk , Vorkuta , Lyubertsy , Petrozavodsk , Leninsk-Kuznetsky , Komsomolsk-on-Amur , Chelyabinsk , Lipetsk ) and other Soviet republics (Stepyanka ( Minsk ) in the Belarusian SSR and Sheqazghan in the Kazakh SSR ). However, some of these were mentioned before 1980. In addition to Kazan, a strong criminal subculture developed in Lyubertsy in particular.
Through the multi-stage development of the gangs, organized and economically active groups emerged from simpler peer groups, which in Russian are recorded under the term Organizovannaja prestupnaja gruppa ( OPG ). However , it is difficult to draw a clear line between the OPG and the youth gangs of the 1970s and 1980s. The often mentioned "offshoots" of the Kazan gangs were mostly OPGs , who settled in Moscow , but more in St. Petersburg due to the lucrative business, but where they could not stay due to the superiority of the local groups.

Due to the positive boom-like economic development since 2005, crime has fallen sharply. Kazan is now a “boomtown” and the informal sector, which used to be a mafia, has developed into the nucleus of small businesses.

Media presentation and social reception

Due to the amalgamation of many unfavorable circumstances, Kazan was one of the first cities, but not the only city, in which delinquent youth gangs formed in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the influence of the events in Kazan on other cities cannot be denied.
" Thus, the middle Volga region has been not only an area where gangs are widely found but a powerful center of gang formation that influences the rest of the country. “
The news formats played an important role in spreading the Kazan phenomenon.
" There is the map (most likely, it is incomplete and approximate) of youth incidents in the country. And therefore Kazan, a city that is presently on everyone's lips, is no special “phenomenon”. It is just that more public attention has been drawn to it than to any other city thanks to numerous articles in the press. “
The media coverage led to stigmatization of the Tatar capital, which led to panic in large parts of the population.
“ We believe that“ Kazan-type ”youth criminal gangs became largely known and widespread in other cities of the former USSR not only due to social and economic factors but also as a result of moral panics formed by the local media which published articles about youth violence in 1985-1988. “
This also aroused the interest of the authorities and politicians who had viewed the movements of the next generation in the wrong way or not at all.
" Violent youth groups have long been the subject of social research in the western world, unlike in the former USSR, where issues related to youth violence, especially violent and criminal youth groups, were tabooed. It had been proclaimed that such activities can only be witnessed in Western Capitalist societies but not in Socialist ones; thus organized youth groups were not mentioned in Russian literature on juvenile delinquency before 1980 or were considered “informal groups”. “
The appearance of the normality of gang memberships and the social and political circumstances ensured that many of the residents in Kazan judged the situation as more stable and safer and often turned to the territorial gang of their district in case of problems. This was partly due to the ban on the consumption of alcohol and other drugs for younger members, and partly to the code of avoidance of unnecessary physical violence.

See also

literature

  • Hilary Pilkington: Russia's youth and its culture: a nation's constructors and constructed. Routledge: London 1994.
  • Aleksandr Salagaev, Aleksandr Šaškin: "Molodëžnye gruppirovki - opytpilotnogo issledovanija". In: Sociologičeskaja issledovanie, No. 9 (2004), pp. 50–58.
  • Lyubov 'Ageeva: Kazansky Fenomen: mif i real'nost'. Tatarskoe Knižnoe Izdat: Kazan´ 1991.
  • Aleksandr Salagaev, Aleksandr Šaškin, Irina Ščerbakova, Ilias Tourijanskij: "Contemporary Russian Gangs: History, Membership, and Crime Involvement". In: Scott Decker, Frank Weermann (Eds.): European Street Gangs and Troublesome Youth Groups. AltaMira: Oxford 2005, pp. 169-192.
  • Jurij Ščekočichin: "Youth Gang Warfare, 'Mafia-Type' Youth Gangs Described [Article in Literaturnaja Gazeta from 10/12]". In: Foreign Broadcast Information Service (ed.): JPRS Report, Soviet Union, Political Affairs. Joint publications research Service: Arlington, Virginia 1988, pp. 66-74.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Ljubov 'Ageeva: Kazansky Fenomen: mif i real'nost'. Tatarskoe Knižnoe Izdat: Kazan´ (1991).
  2. ↑ a b Aleksandr Salagaev, Aleksandr Šaškin: "Molodëžnye gruppirovki - opytpilotnogo issledovanija". In: Sociologičeskaja issledovanie, No. 9 (2004), pp. 50–58.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Hilary Pilkington: Russia's youth and its culture: a nation's constructors and constructed. Routledge: London (1994).
  4. ↑ a b c Aleksandr Salagaev, Aleksandr Šaškin, Irina Ščerbakova, Ilias Tourijanskij: "Contemporary Russian Gangs: History, Membership, and Crime Involvement". In: Scott Decker, Frank Weermann (Eds.): European Street Gangs and Troublesome Youth Groups. AltaMira: Oxford, (2005), pp. 169-192.
  5. ↑ Malcolm Klein, Frank Weermann, Terence Thornberry: "Street gang violence in Europe". In: European Journal of Criminology, No. 3 (2006), pp. 413-437.
  6. ↑ a b Jurij Ščekočichin: "Youth Gang Warfare, 'Mafia-Type' Youth Gangs Described [Article in Literaturnaja Gazeta from 10/12]". In: Foreign Broadcast Information Service (ed.): JPRS Report, Soviet Union, Political Affairs. Joint publications research Service: Arlington, Virginia (1988), pp. 66-74.
  7. ↑ Aleksandr Salagaev, Aleksandr Makarov, Rustem Safin: "Violent Youth Groups in the Tatarstan Republic of Russia". In: Groups and Environment, No. 2 (2010), pp. 175-182.
    Hilary Pilkington: Russia's youth and its culture: a nation's constructors and constructed. Routledge: London (1994).
  8. ↑ Aleksandr Salagaev: "Evolution of Delinquent Gangs in Russia". In: Malcolm Klein, Hans-Jürgen Kerner, Cheryl Maxson, Elmas Witekamp (eds.): The Eurogang Paradox: Street Gangs and Youth Groups in the US and Europe. Springer Science + Business Media: Dordrecht (2001), pp. 195–202.
    Lyubov 'Ageeva: Kazansky Fenomen: mif i real'nost'. Tatarskoe Knižnoe Izdat: Kazan´ (1991).
    Hilary Pilkington: Russia's youth and its culture: a nation's constructors and constructed. Routledge: London (1994).
  9. ↑ a b c d Svetlana Stephenson: The Kazan Leviathan: Russian Street Gangs as Agents of Social Order. In: The Sociological Review, Vol. 59, No. 2 (2011), pp. 324-47.
  10. ↑ a b c d Aleksandr Salagaev: "Evolution of Delinquent Gangs in Russia". In: Malcolm Klein, Hans-Jürgen Kerner, Cheryl Maxson, Elmas Witekamp (eds.): The Eurogang Paradox: Street Gangs and Youth Groups in the US and Europe. Springer Science + Business Media: Dordrecht (2001), pp. 195–202.
  11. ↑ Jurij Ščekočichin: "Youth Gang Warfare, 'Mafia-Type' Youth Gangs Described [Article in Literaturnaja Gazeta from 10/12]". In: Foreign Broadcast Information Service (ed.): JPRS Report, Soviet Union, Political Affairs. Joint publications research Service: Arlington, Virginia (1988), pp. 66-74.
    Hilary Pilkington: Russia's youth and its culture: a nation's constructors and constructed. Routledge: London (1994).
  12. ^ Vadim Volkov: Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian. Cornell University Press: New York (2002).
  13. ↑ Ramon Schack : The Tatar model. In: zenithonline. August 5, 2014, online: Archived copy ( memento of the original from August 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zenithonline.de
  14. ↑ a b Aleksandr Salagaev, Aleksandr Makarov, Rustem Safin: "Violent Youth Groups in the Tatarstan Republic of Russia". In: Groups and Environment, No. 2 (2010), pp. 175-182.