Understanding modern Russia through ceremonial formulas, state slogans, and pseudo-historical manifestos has long been impossible. The structure of this system is much more accurately revealed elsewhere: in the language of the zone, in the cult of power, in the hierarchy of ‘pahan — six’, in the romanticization of the bandit as a hero, and in the habit of turning violence into a norm. This idea is thoroughly examined in the podcast (Ukr.) “TYURYAGA.RU: Brigade, Brother, Word of a Guy and Other Hits of RU Culture” by the authors of Center for MordoRU Research, where prison culture is shown not as a byproduct, but as one of the basic codes of Russian public life.
The key bond of Russian culture today… PRISON! And this is not only because many Muscovites have served time or are planning to do so in the future. But consider that the current Russian elite not only does not disdain criminal chanson as a national style of music, but also pours crazy money into criminalized cinema — from films like “Brother” or “Boomer” to series — the classic “Brigade” and the more modern “Word”.
What caused such an infusion of the Russian people with prison culture and what consequences it has today — are discussed by Deputy Director of the CPI Alina Alexeeva and cultural sociologist Bogdan-Oleg Gorobchuk.
For the Israeli audience, this conversation is especially important.
In Israel, they understand too well what happens to a society where power begins to be passed off as truth, and aggression as character. When a regime grows next to the democratic world, feeding on criminal aesthetics, humiliation of the weak, and the cult of a harsh hierarchy, it is no longer a question of foreign pop culture. It is a question of security, political thinking, and how violence becomes an export commodity.
Why prison has become not a metaphor, but a model
In the discussed video, a harsh but accurate formula is voiced: the real deep Russia is most conveniently read through criminal psychology.
Not through officialdom, not through school textbooks, and not through the decorations of ‘great culture’, but through prison logic, where the world is divided not into citizens, but into castes, where dignity is replaced by status, and freedom is substituted by submission.
The essence of this model is extremely simple and therefore so tenacious. Either you are a ‘pahan’, or you are a ‘six’. The system does not like a third position. It poorly tolerates an autonomous person who does not want to either dominate or submit. That is why it so needs a constant ritual of inclusion in the pack: through fear, through violence, through symbolic or literal blood, through coercion to participate. The podcast separately analyzes the logic of teenage initiation, where the right to be ‘one of us’ must be earned through humiliation, fighting, and rejection of one’s own individuality.
This is especially noticeable in the example of the discussion of the series ‘Word of a Guy’. It is shown not just as a nostalgic product about the end of the USSR or about tough neighborhoods. In the video, it is interpreted as a screen textbook of Soviet-post-Soviet street and prison hierarchy, where a teenager is forced to ‘sew’ to a group so as not to remain an outsider, and belonging to the collective is almost formalized as initiation into a closed male order.
And here an important key point emerges. The problem is not in one series and not even in one genre. The problem is that this logic in Russia does not look archaic. The podcast authors directly say: this is not a museum exhibit and not a critic’s invention, but a living culture that continues to reproduce in school, in music, in everyday language, in male rituals, in politics, and in mass imagination.
From the yard to the state
An important part of the conversation is devoted to how street and prison hierarchy rises up the levels of society.
First, it’s the yard, school, teenage group. Then — the criminal world of the 90s. Then — the new elite, which stops being ashamed of criminal taste and begins to consider it a sign of strength and status. And then the main thing happens: the state does not destroy this culture, but negotiates with it, absorbs it, and turns it into its own tool.
The podcast emphasizes that the end of the 80s and the 90s gave this environment a huge chance. The collapse of old institutions, the fall of the authority of power structures, the struggle for capital, and the redistribution of property brought criminal mechanisms out of the shadows into the center of public life. Later, the authorities learned not so much to defeat this world as to balance with it and use its code as part of a new normality.
That is why in the Russian system, prison is not just a place of detention. It is a way of unifying society. It is a model that teaches: at the top, there should be one, the rest are distributed by ranks; humanity hinders management; humiliation is an acceptable method; fear is a useful resource. In the discussed video, this idea is voiced as one of the central theses.
Why this is important to understand in Israel
For Israel, where the issue of social stability is always linked to security, this topic is not theoretical.
The Russian-speaking environment in the country has faced the import of post-Soviet cultural codes for decades — from television nostalgia to the language of rough male ‘truth’. And if you do not timely distinguish where everyday habit ends and the normalization of violence begins, you can miss the moment when bandit aesthetics start to seem like a ‘strong style’, rather than a symptom of moral degradation.
Israeli society is built on the opposite idea: strength is needed to protect life, not to deify the predator. That is why it is important for the reader here to see the difference between military responsibility and criminal romanticism. Between the army as an institution of civil defense and a gang as a machine of domination. Between a defender and a ‘cool guy’. These are different worlds, even if from the outside someone wants to reduce them to one word — strength.
How cinema, music, and series trained the viewer
One of the strongest lines of the podcast is the analysis of not only ideology but also media.
Because no toxic system holds on fear alone. It needs an attractive shell. It needs evil to look stylish, and humiliation to seem natural.
The video authors recall how in the 90s and later Russian series and films about bandits became part of the general media space and in Ukraine too. ‘Brigade’, ‘Brother’, ‘Bandit Petersburg’, and other stories sold the viewer not just a plot about criminals. They sold an emotional package: brotherhood, oath, loyalty to the pack, the right of the strong, the charisma of a person without brakes. And for teenagers, this often worked as a ready-made role model.
The podcast separately mentions that after watching such stories, boys would come to school and literally start playing Sasha Bely. This is a crucial detail. Mass culture here did not reflect reality but taught it. It offered a ready-made mask of masculinity, in which crime looked almost like initiation, and an oath to the gang — as a high moral act.
Especially indicative is the analysis of the film ‘Brother’. In the discussion, it is called not a neutral classic, but a film that laid a time bomb. The reason is clear: the central character acts as a bearer of unconditional right to violence, and the story itself teaches the viewer not to empathize with the law, but to admire the person who shoots first and then justifies himself with talk of truth. When such aesthetics live in the mass consciousness for decades, they begin to form the political instinct of an entire country.
Chanson as the music of the national subconscious
Equally important is the musical part of this cultural code.
The video thoroughly discusses that for the new Russian elite of the 90s and subsequent years, chanson and criminalized aesthetics became not a shameful periphery, but an organic part of status. This was listened to, ordered in restaurants, marked ‘coolness’ with it, and demonstrated belonging to the right male world through it.
Another thesis sounds even harsher: this culture did not remain in the past. The podcast gives examples of modern tracks and trends where the chanson code, criminal language, and bandit image are again packaged in a fashionable form — through pop, TikTok aesthetics, ‘gangster’ recitative, and visual quotes from the old criminal world.
That is, the system does not just keep an archive. It constantly updates the showcase.
It is here in the middle of the conversation that it becomes especially clear why NANovosti — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency raises such topics for the Russian-speaking audience in Israel. It is not about a film review and not about someone else’s nostalgia. It is about cultural vaccination: the more accurately society recognizes the mechanisms of romanticizing violence, the harder it is to sell the old prison code under the guise of ‘tradition’, ‘tough character’, or ‘real male truth’.
School as an early conveyor
One of the most disturbing topics in the transcription is the school environment. It is directly stated that in the Russian model, children come to school and are divided into castes: ‘guys’ and ‘not guys’.
This is not just slang. This is the language of early sorting of people by the principle of strength and suitability to the pack.
The comparative emphasis is also important. Podcast participants note that in Ukraine, similar models were once also felt as inertia of the 90s and as a result of Russian cultural influence, but after the Revolution of Dignity and against the backdrop of war, the social structure began to change: children became closer not to bandit brotherhood, but to the image of a defender, a soldier, a fighter who answers not to a pahan, but to the country.
This is a fundamental fork. Where growing up is built around a criminal caste, a person learns to humiliate and submit. Where growing up is associated with responsibility and a civic role, he learns to protect and withstand blows without turning into a predator. The difference is colossal.
From the romance of the zone to war and politics
The heaviest part of this conversation begins where prison culture ceases to be a topic of series and music and moves into direct politics. The podcast insists: the romanticization of the zone in Russia is closely intertwined with the romanticization of war. The logic is almost literal — if crime, power, and domination have long been perceived as a normal path to status, then external aggression is easily presented as a continuation of the same male ritual.
The video directly draws a link between the recruitment of prisoners, Prigozhin’s practice, and the transformation of a former convict into an acceptable, and sometimes even heroized, participant in the war.
The formula sounds extremely grim: killed, served time, went to war, killed again, got out — and became part of the norm. The podcast authors emphasize that in Ukraine there is no such conveyor as a cultural model, whereas in Russia it literally comes ‘out of every hole’.
This explains a lot for Israel as well. When a country faces not just an opponent, but a society where violence is embedded in the mass myth of dignity, any negotiation illusions require additional sobriety. Because in front of you is not only the state apparatus but also a long-standing school of emotional habituation to cruelty.
Why ‘strength in truth’ turns into a license to kill
The podcast very accurately exposes one of the main substituted concepts of Russian mass culture: the famous formula about truth and strength has long been detached from ethics and has become a convenient verbal cover for arbitrariness. First, a person kills, and then begins to philosophize about truth. First, destroys, and then declares it justice.
Such a mechanism looks spectacular in cinema, but in real politics, it turns into justification for any aggression.
Hence the particular toxicity of such cultural products. They do not just make the bandit ‘understandable’. They teach the viewer an important psychological move: first to sympathize with the abuser, then to adopt his lexicon, and then to consider his moral justifications convincing. This is the deep work of propaganda, where the path to political violence is paved not only by news but also by soundtracks, series, replicas, memes, and archetypes.
Why the Russian model is dangerous for neighbors
Russia has long been unable to export attractive modernity. But it is good at exporting nerve, fear, rudeness, and infected cultural forms. This applies not only to politics but also to media. Where the Russian cultural code long remained the norm, it eroded the very notion of masculinity, solidarity, and success.
Instead of dignity came status.
Instead of freedom — belonging to the pack. Instead of law — the personal ‘truth’ of the strong.
For countries that are nearby, including Israel as a state with a large Russian-speaking community and a keen sense of historical threat, this is an important lesson. Criminal romanticism cannot be treated as a harmless style. Very often it is a training ground for future political barbarism.
What to oppose to this matrix
The answer to this cultural model is not in censorship hysteria and not in panic before every series.
The answer is in clear moral distinction.
Things need to be called by their names: bandit pathos does not make a person strong, prison aesthetics do not make culture deep, and violence, even beautifully filmed, does not become valor.
This is intuitively understandable to the Israeli reader. Here the price of error is too high, the feeling of real threat is too close, and it is too well known how easily the cult of power without morality turns into a cult of destruction. That is why the conversation about ‘Brother’, ‘Brigade’, chanson, and ‘Word of a Guy’ is not a conversation about someone else’s past. It is a conversation about how to recognize moral infection before it begins to pass itself off as the norm.
This is the main conclusion that follows from the podcast. Prison in the Russian case is not only an institution of punishment. It is a cultural factory, the language of power, a way of socialization, a source of pop heroes, and a political textbook for the masses. And as long as this factory operates, Russia will again and again produce not a citizen, but a pack member; not a free person, but a bearer of rank instinct; not a culture of life, but a culture of domination and death.
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