Mafia and Anti-Mafia in the Republic of Georgia:
Criminal Resilience and Adaptation Since theCollapse of Communism

Gavin Slade
St. Antony’s College
Oxford2011

Abstract'Thieves-in-law' (vory-v-zakone in Russian or kanonieri qurdebi in Georgian)are career criminals belonging to a criminal fraternity that has existed at least sincethe 1930s in the Soviet Gulag. These actors still exist in one form or another in postSoviet countries and have integrated into transnational organised criminal networks.
For reasons yet to be explicated, thieves-in-law became exceptionally prevalent in theSoviet republic of Georgia. Here, by the 1990s, they formed a mafia network where
this means criminal associations that attempt to monopolize protection in legal andillegal sectors of the economy.
In 2005, Mikhail Saakashvili, the current president of Georgia claimed that 'in
the past 15 years...Georgia was not ruled by [former President] Shevardnadze, but by
thieves-in-law.' Directly transferring anti-organised crime policy from Italy andAmerica, Saakashvili's government made reform of the criminal justice systemgenerally and an attack on the thieves-in-law specifically a cornerstone of the Rose
Revolution. New legislation criminalises the possession of the status of ‘thief-in-law’and of membership of criminal associations that constitute what is known as the‘thieves’ world’ (qurduli samkaro). Along with a sweeping reform of the police andprisons and a ‘culture of lawfulness’ campaign, Georgian criminal justice reforms
since 2003 may be seen as the first sustained anti-mafia policy to be implemented in a
post-Soviet country. It also appears to have been very successful.
The longevity and sudden decline of the thieves-in-law in Georgia provides themain questions that the following study addresses: How do we account for changes in
the levels of resilience to state attack of actors carrying the elite criminal status of‘thief-in-law’? How has this resilience been so effectively compromised since 2005?
Utilising unique access to primary sources of data such as police files, court cases,
archives and expert interviews this thesis studies the dynamics of changing mafia
activities, recruitment practices, and structural forms of a criminal group as it relates
to changes in the environment and, in particular, the recent anti-organised crime
policy.

2

Contents
List of Figures, Graphs, and Tables ............................................................................ 6
List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................... 7
Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... 8
1.The Kanonieri Qurdebi in Georgia ........................................................................ 11
1.1 A Very Brief History of Soviet Thievery ................................................................... 16
1.2 The Kanonieri Qurdebi: A Research Question ........................................................ 25

2. Trust Networks: Understanding How Criminal Groups Change and Survive .... 27
2.1 Resilience of What? ..................................................................................................... 27
2.2 Resilience to What? ..................................................................................................... 33
2.3 The Concept of Resilience ........................................................................................... 35
2.4 Four Key Variables in the Study of Resilience in Trust Networks ......................... 36
2.4.1 Summary of Variables and Effects of Change _________________________________ 40

2.5 Structure of the Study ................................................................................................. 44
2.6 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 46

3. Research Design, Data Collection, and Analysis .................................................. 47
3.1 Developing a Research Question and Approach ...................................................... 48
3.2 Operationalisation of Concepts .................................................................................. 51
3.3 Issues of Validity .......................................................................................................... 54
3.4 Data Sources and Data Collection.............................................................................. 57
3.4.1 Expert Interviews _______________________________________________________ 57
3.4.2 Secondary Data Analysis__________________________________________________ 61

3.5 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................... 65
3.6 Limitations ................................................................................................................... 68
3.7 Ethics ............................................................................................................................ 72
3.8 Reflections .................................................................................................................... 74

4. The Qurdebi as a Soviet Mafia .............................................................................. 78
4.1 The Emergence and Essence of Mafias...................................................................... 79
4.2 The Second Economy in Soviet Georgia .................................................................... 87
4.3 The Qurdebi in Soviet Georgia .................................................................................. 95
4.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 101

5. The Qurdebi as a Post-Soviet Mafia .................................................................... 103
5.1 Krysha and Garcheva: Practices of Protection and Arbitration .......................... 105

3

5.2 The Qurdebi in the Legitimate Economy ................................................................ 111
5.2.1 Mini-Buses ___________________________________________________________ 112
5.2.2 Market Wholesalers _____________________________________________________ 115
5.2.3 Gambling and Debt Collection ____________________________________________ 116
5.2.4 Herbal Exports_________________________________________________________ 119

5.3 The Qurdebi and Illegal Enterprises and Activities ............................................... 120
5.3.1 Kidnapping and Bride-Kidnapping _________________________________________ 121
5.3.2 Car Theft _____________________________________________________________ 124

5.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 125

6. Predators: the Qurdebi and the State before and after the Rose Revolution ..... 128
6.1 Predation, Organised Crime and Trust Networks ................................................. 130
6.2 Mafia and State in the Later Soviet Period: Clientage and Negotiated Connection........................................................................................................................................... 134
6.3 Clientage, Bargaining and Integration with State Structures in the 1990s .......... 139
6.4 Anti-Mafia and the Rose Revolution ....................................................................... 144
6.4.1 Anti-Mafia Legislation __________________________________________________ 145
6.4.2 Police and Prison Reform ________________________________________________ 148
6.4.3 Educational Reform_____________________________________________________ 152

6.5 Strategies of Resistance ............................................................................................. 153
6.6 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 157

7. Fitting the Frame: Recruitment Practices and Adaptation ................................ 161
7.1 Recruitment and Signalling Attributes.................................................................... 162
7.2 Initiation and Trust ................................................................................................... 166
7.3 The Role of Prison ..................................................................................................... 169
7.4 Changes in the Use of Prison in Recruitment ......................................................... 172
7.5 Determinants of Changes in Recruitment: Hypotheses ......................................... 176
7.5.1 Competition ___________________________________________________________ 177
7.5.2 Agency and Opportunity Costs ____________________________________________ 185

7.6 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 193

8. Between Networks and Hierarchies: Structure and Internal Relations ............ 194
8.1 Traditional Structure of the Thieves’ World Outside Prison................................ 195
8.2 Structure, Coordination and Transformations in Trust Networks ...................... 197
8.3 Factionalism ............................................................................................................... 199
8.3.1 Population Centres and Locative Nicknames _________________________________ 201
8.3.2 Internecine Conflict _____________________________________________________ 2044

8.4 Within-Faction Centralisation ................................................................................. 207
8.4.1 Network Analysis: Centralization in the Kutaisskaya ___________________________ 209

8.5 Determinants of Organisational Structure and Change ........................................ 216
8.5.1 Factionalism and Penal Policy_____________________________________________ 217
8.5.2 Centralised Factions and Competition _______________________________________ 221
8.5.3 Network Size, Agency Costs, Factionalism and Centralisation ___________________ 224

8.6 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 228

9. ‘With My Body and Soul’: Commitment and Exit Costs in the Thieves’ World 230
9.1 The Concept of Commitment ................................................................................... 232
9.2 Commitment and Change in the Georgian Thieves’ World .................................. 236
9.2.1 Side Bets: The Obshchak ________________________________________________ 238
9.2.2 Burning Bridges: Social Ties and Lifestyle ___________________________________ 241
9.2.3 Normative Commitment: Nicknaming and Self-Identification ____________________ 247

9.3 Summary of Changes in Commitment Mechanisms .............................................. 254
9.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 259

10. Maintaining Distinction: the Qurdebi as a Criminal Status Group................. 260
10.1 Criminal Collective Identities: Signalling Status .................................................. 262
10.2 The Qurdebi as a Status Group ............................................................................. 267
10.3 The Trademark and Foiling Fakers ...................................................................... 273
10.4 Protecting High Status: Standardising Signatures ............................................... 277
10.5 Protecting High Status: Qurdebi and the Church ................................................ 281
10.6 A Decline in Societal Support? ............................................................................... 282
10.7 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 288

11. In Conclusion: the Qurdebi on Trial ................................................................. 290
11.1 Previous and Future Research ............................................................................... 295

Glossary of Terms..................................................................................................... 299
Appendix: Images ..................................................................................................... 302
Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 312
Secondary Literature ...................................................................................................... 312
Books and Articles __________________________________________________________ 312
Journalistic Reports _________________________________________________________ 326
News Agencies _____________________________________________________________ 329
Expert Interviews ___________________________________________________________ 333

Archival Sources .............................................................................................................. 334

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Court Cases and Indictments ......................................................................................... 335
Official Documents & Reports ....................................................................................... 336

List of Figures, Graphs, and Tables

Figure 1.1: Prison Hierarchy ________________________________________________________ 22
Table 2.1: main features of governance structures ________________________________________ 31
Table 2.2: variables constituting resilience of trust networks and effects of change on survival ____ 41
Table 5.1 to show enterprises protected by the qurdebi by sector ___________________________ 108
Table 6.1 to show predominant relational strategies of the state and the qurdebi in Georgia over time______________________________________________________________________________ 158
Table 7.1: differences in numbers of convictions across cohorts____________________________ 174
Graph 7.1: numbers of qurdebi killed between the years 1988-2009. ________________________ 181
Table 7.2: location of qurdebi in 2004 by cohort ________________________________________ 188
Figure 8.1: Structure of ‘Thieves’ World’ outside the Prison ______________________________ 196
Table 8.1: internal changes in trust networks___________________________________________ 198
Map 8.1 showing populations by region and numbers of kanonieri qurdebi in each _____________ 202
Figure 8.2 showing the interrelations of actors within the Kutaisskaya faction_________________ 212
Table 8.3 to show top three qurdebi for each faction in terms of number of ties ________________ 214
Map 8.2 showing locations of Georgian prisons in 2004. _________________________________ 218
Table 8.2: shows frequencies for where court cases involving Imeretian qurdebi took place ______ 219
Table 9.1: number of qurdebi with nicknames and percentages by cohort determined by approximate
age baptised Source: AOCU-T & K 2004 _____________________________________________ 252
Table 9.2: commitment mechanisms in the original thieves’ world and whether each is still present. 256
Graph 10.1: to show attitudes to the qurdebi 2004-2007 __________________________________ 285

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List of Abbreviations

AOCU-T = Anti-Organised Crime Unit Tbilisi, Special Operations Department,
Ministry of the Interior Affairs

AOCU-K = Anti-Organised Crime Unit Kutaisi, Special Operations Department,
Ministry of the Internal Affairs

PA = Presidential Archive

MVD-A = Archive of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs

R = Respondents in expert interviews, numbered 1 to 44

MIA = Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia

OSCE = Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe

ESI – European Stability Initiative7

Acknowledgements
Back in 2007, completing this thesis within four years seemed highly
improbable and it would have remained that way were it not for the positivity andsupport of a whole range of people. I apologise for leaving out here many, many
people who, perhaps not even knowingly, assisted along the way.
In Oxford, my supervisors, Professors Ian Loader and Federico Varese, havebeen extremely amiable, patient and supportive of the project. I have been very lucky
to have such supervisors and the stamp of their intellects can be found in the resulting
work. Dr. Mary Bosworth has been an excellent Director of Graduate Studies andshown a real interest in the work of the DPhils at the Centre for Criminology. Of
them, Justin Abold, Maria Christina Dorado Alvarez, Alexey Bessudnov, Paolo
Campana, Alex Chung, Christopher Giacomantonio, Marie Manikis, and James Ogg
have all been great to work and socialise with and discuss common issues. It was alsoa pleasure to share the experience of doing a DPhil on modern Georgia with Joel
Lazarus at St. Antony’s. I have gained a lot from presenting and discussing my workwith Professor Diego Gambetta, Dr.Valeria-Pizzini Gambetta and Dr. Heather Hamill,as well as Professor Judith Pallot and Professor Carlo Morselli whose advice at an
early stage had a formative influence on the thesis. Finally, many thanks also to Lia
Chockoshvili at the Oxford Language Centre for the long hours refereeing my fightwith the Georgian verb system.
The level of support I received in Georgia was frankly humbling. In particular,
I wish to say a big thank you to the Macharashvili family who I have known since myfirst visit to Georgia in 2002. As well as treating me as a member of their family, they
are my primary educators of Georgian culture and society and have enriched every
experience I have had in Georgia. I have benefited intellectually and practically fromthe help of the foremost scholars on the qurdebi in Georgia, Giorgi Glonti and Givi
Lobjanidze, they have both been more than giving with their advice and time. At theInstitute of State and Law in Tbilisi, Lasha Bregvadze gave me use of office space
and introduced me to many of the excellent legal scholars working in Georgia. Penal
Reform International and in particular, Maia Khasia, Eka Iakobishvili, and Rait Kuuse
were all incredibly helpful and supportive of the project and I am deeply indebted to8them for their help and advice. Mari Gabedava and Nana Lobjanidze at Transparency
International assisted me at crucial times. Lela Chakaia has been a great friend,
discussant and supporter of the project – it was in fact a conversation with her back in2006 that initiated it. The Ioseliani family in Kutaisi put me up and introduced me to
Imeretian drinking traditions. For their time and generous help, I would also like tothank Irakli Kotetishvili, Chiora Taktakishvili, Shota Utiashvili, Gia Siradze andKakha Tsalkalamanidze, and everyone at the Presidential Archive.
Georgia is blessed with some incredibly conscientious people in the expat
community working for the betterment of the country to whom I wish a successful
continuation of their activities. Of these, I am especially grateful to Dr. Timothy
Blauvelt for his time and advice on archive exploration.
Andriani Fili deserves more than just this mention for her amazing patienceand support over the last few years; she has made the whole research process a loteasier. Finally, I dedicate this to my parents for their lifelong commitment toeducation that has instilled curiosity and a love of learning in me.

9

10

1.The Kanonieri Qurdebi in Georgia‘A prison cell in which there are no thieves is reminiscent of a desolate island wherethe victims of a shipwreck drag out a pitiful existence and, in anticipation of a rescue
vessel, eat each other.’

Nodar Dumbadze, White Flags, (1988, p. 184)

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the small Caucasian1 republic ofGeorgia became embroiled in separatist and civil wars, and political and economic
breakdown. In the midst of this a Soviet era criminal elite grouping known as thievesin-law, kanonieri qurdebi in Georgian or more famously vory-v-zakone in Russian,2gained a strong influence. These career criminals were romanticised, viewed ashonourable, steely men, an alloy of the Soviet Gulag prisoner, known as the blatnoi,
and the Caucasus mountain outlaw, the abrag. And, just as in Soviet Georgian writer
Dumbadze’s prison cell, they were also perceived as a source of stability, arbitration,and enforcement.
1

The term Caucasian as used throughout this text refers to the geographic region around the Caucasus
mountains and has no racial connotation.
2
In English ‘thieves-in-law.’ This is a literal translation. ‘Law’ refers to the criminal set of rules thatthe thieves lived by. Other suggestions for an English translation include ‘thieves-professing-the-code’(Serio & Razinkin 1994) which is more accurate in meaning, but rather unwieldy. I will use theGeorgian term as this is mainly what Georgians call them. Russian terms are also sometimes usedwhich have the same meaning such as zakonniki, or other Georgian expressions such as ramkiani
qurdebi – ‘thieves-in-the-frame’. As the focus will be on Georgia, I will use kanonieri qurdebi or
qurdebi to refer to members of this criminal status group. In the singular in Georgian this is rendered
qurdi and qurdebi in the plural. However, when discussing the problem of thieves-in-law moregenerally as a Soviet phenomenon I will use the English ‘thieves-in-law’ to denote the fact that on thegeneral level they hailed from many different nations and ethnicities.

11

In June 2003, just months before being overthrown in a peaceful usurpation
known as the Rose Revolution, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, presiding
over a government session in Tbilisi allegedly admitted: “thieves-in-law have eaten
the country.” Yet Shevardnadze himself had come back to Georgia in March 1992
after he had been invited to head a new government by an eminent qurdi, Jaba
Ioseliani, who at the time was part of a ruling triumvirate who had overthrown the
democratically elected first President of newly independent Georgia, Zviad
Gamsakhurdia (Wheatley 2005; Zurcher 2006; Areshidze 2007).
Now Shevardnadze was responding to the news that a prominent exiled qurdi,
Tariel Oniani, had been instrumental in freeing three United Nations’ workers who
were being held hostage somewhere in the Kodori Gorge in western Georgia.
Shevardnadze’s plenipotentiary in the gorge, Emzar Kvitsiani, was proud to announce
his connections with the ‘thieves’ world’3 and his rescue methods to the press(Devdariani, 2003). Indeed, Kvitsiani was familiar with this criminal world as his
nephew Bacho Arghvliani was an initiated qurdi and together they had been pursuingtheir own aims on the border with the breakaway region of Abkhazia using the unruly
paramilitary organisation Monadire (‘Hunter’), formally subordinated to the Georgian
Defence Ministry (Edilashvili 2006).
This vignette from 2003 is intended as a snapshot of political life inindependent Georgia prior to the Rose Revolution of November that year. The
kanonieri qurdebi, initiated made men of a fraternity that headed criminal groups
providing protection and dispute resolution, had become very prominent withinsociety in the competitive and violent environment of 1990s Georgia. The country hadgone through a turbulent decade of economic decline and war (Zurcher 2006; Goltz
3This is known as qurduli samkaro in Georgian and vorovskoi mir in Russian. It may be thought of asa social institution with defined roles, norms and traditions that the thieves-in-law control. I will use theEnglish term ‘thieves’ world’ for simplicity.

122006; King 2008). Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s Georgia appeared to be a‘weak’ state, along those dimensions identified as constitutive of ‘stateness’ (Buzan in
Holsti 1996, chapter 5).4 As one analyst put it (Legvold 2006, p. 12): ‘whatever thecontrasts in emphasis, nearly all Georgian analysts understand the core of thecountry’s security problem to be compromised statehood.’ The government in thecapital Tbilisi had lost control over swathes of the territory, administered one of themost corrupt countries in the world (Transparency International, 2003),5 and had an
empty budget to work with. The foundation of the state, the monopoly of legitimate
violence, had splintered. Armed militias and organised crime had proliferated and theprovision of protection by the state had become undependable. ‘Institutions, including
those expressly designed to provide security, have so weakened, have been so
corrupted, and have so become the preserve of families, clans, and special intereststhat they no longer have the strength to defend either the individual or the country
from harm’ (Legvold 2006, p. 6).
Recent reports suggest there may be as many as 1,000 thieves-in-law
operating in the post-soviet space (Glonti & Lobjanidze 2004). In recent years, as
relations between Georgia and Russia have got frostier, Russian newspapers repeat
the fact that 33% of all these criminals are of Georgian origin (Utitsin 2006;
Vorosobin 2006; Dalnilkin 2006). One article puts the number at 1,200 thieves, 65%of whom hail from Georgia (Kalinin 2001).6 This makes them the most heavily
represented ethnicity of all the post-soviet thieves-in-law, slightly ahead of the4

According to Buzan, stateness comprises three elements. Firstly, there is the physical basis of thestate; the territory that it controls, the population, the resources and wealth. Secondly, there is the actual
institutional expression of the state; the machinery of government, the laws, offices and bureaucracies.
Thirdly, there is the idea of the state; the historical, national, ideological and/or traditional narratives
that frame the state in a legitimating discourse and naturalise authority and power relations.
5
In 2003,Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index places Georgia 124th from 133rd in
the world with a score of 1.8 from 10.
6
Other experts are sceptical of such numbers. Varese (2001) believes that numbers would be in decline
by the late 1990s and Serio (2008) put the total number of thieves-in-law much lower.

13

Russians. This is a curious fact given that Georgia is a country of less than 5 million
people and made up less than 2% of the entire Soviet population. Yet it seems
corroborated by the Georgian Interior Ministry’s own information of 2003, that
registered 349 thieves-in-law of Georgian origin (Glonti & Lobjanidze 2004; AOCUT 2008). Of these, 315 were Georgian ethnically; the remainder were born in Georgia
though were not Georgian per se.7 In recent times some of this number have cropped
up in the news in casinos in Moscow, in shoot-outs in Siberia, at the centre of prison
riots in Tbilisi, on fake passports in Ukraine, and as far a field as the entertainmentand construction industries on the Costa del Sol, Spain.
Perhaps with this in mind Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili
mentioned the Georgian qurdebi in the same breath as the Italian and American
mafias, claiming that the qurdebi were a ‘headache for the whole world’ (Novyi
Region, 2006) This appears to be hyperbole, yet the last few years have seen
increasing numbers of police raids on Georgian crime groups throughout Europe. The
Spanish security services have launched at least two big operations against criminalgroups of Georgian origin in the last five years (Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's
Office Spain, 2005). Recently, over 60 people, associated to the ‘Georgian Mafia’
were arrested throughout Europe accused of operating a criminal ring that engaged inarmed robbery, burglary, extortion, and money laundering (Oxford Analytica 2010).
Meanwhile, in Russia, Moscow is at the centre of a running gang conflict between
two factions of Georgian qurdebi that has seen hits carried out around Europe(Kommersant 2009).
A significant reason that so much qurdebi activity has been recorded recently
outside of Georgia is the policies of new President Mikheil Saakashvili’s

7

The most represented ethnicities were: 20 Armenians, 9 Kurds, and 3 Greeks.

14administration. The Rose Revolution of November 2003 led to fresh parliamentaryand presidential elections in which Saakashvili was swept to power with over 90% of
the vote (OSCE 2004a). Saakashvili’s United National Movement landed a majority
in parliament in relatively free and fair elections (OSCE 2004b; ESI 2010). With astrong mandate the new government had a window of opportunity for reform. An
overhaul of the criminal justice system was a priority and destroying the institution of
kanonieri qurdebi became a cornerstone of this. New legislation was passed, theterms kanonieri qurdi and qurduli samkaro (thieves’ world) entered criminal law. The
fact of being a qurdi or being associated with them was criminalised. Arrests weremade across the country.
Despite this state attack the Georgian criminal world did not appear to respondeffectively.8 The main apparent act of resistance, a prison riot in facility no. 5 in
Tbilisi in March 2006, threatened to spread across the country. Special Forces
eventually put down the riot with the loss of seven prisoners’ lives (Anjaparidze 2006;
Civil Georgia 2006). The government produced evidence that the riot was organisedby an exiled qurdi and framed the episode as a last attempt of the ‘criminal
authorities’ to take back the country from the Rose Revolutionaries (Slade 2007).
Independent observers such as the Ombudsman have doubted this version of events
however, suggesting instead that the riot had not been an overarching conspiracy but
was down to general discontent and ignited by government provocation (Public
Defender of Georgia 2007).
Nevertheless, by June 2006, according to the Interior Ministry and parroted by
the Prison Service, there was not one qurdi left in freedom (Lenta 2006; Prison

8This judgement is based on the claims being made by the Georgian government as to the all-pervasivenature of the qurdebi and is elaborated on in chapter 6. It is interesting to compare the criminal
response in Georgia to that of Italy when very similar reforms were made. In Italy, key judges wereassassinated and cities bombed following the Anti-Mafia Commission of 1992.

15

Service 2006). Many had fled the country to Russia and Ukraine. By March of 2007,
in his state of the nation address, Saakashvili declared (President’s Office 2007):

The backbone of the system of crime bosses has been broken…. some of the people
who sat in this room said that the parliament of a little independent Georgia would
hardly be able to do something that Stalin himself was unable to do. I would like toreport to you today that…dozens of crime bosses have faced trial and have been
isolated from the public.

Saakashvili’s reference to Stalin was almost certainly deliberate. The thievesin-law are believed to originate in the Gulag of the 1930s (Solzhenitsyn 1974;
Chalidze 1977; Shalamov 1994; Applebaum 2003). I now present a very shortoverview of the existence of these criminals up to the end of the Soviet Union in orderto acquaint the reader with the historical backdrop of the modern day Georgian antimafia policy.

1.1 A Very Brief History of Soviet Thievery

In the expanding camp system of the Soviet Union under Stalin, thieves-inlaw constituted a criminal fraternity that topped prisoner hierarchies. Such hierarchies
had existed prior to the Soviet Union. In this system there had been a category forthieves (vory) but this had not been high-ranking and had had 25 sub-categories(Oleinik 2003, p. 64). One of these sub-categories, urki, eventually came to top thehierarchy as penal society restructured itself after the revolution. Thieves-in-law(vory-v-zakone) became the title for those that were initiated at the top of the prisoner
hierarchies and many aspects of the urki culture were assimilated. The ‘-in-law’ partof the name referred to a code of honour the thieves lived by. The most important16

tenets of this law were (Serio & Razinkin 1994, p.1; Varese 2001, chap. 7; Glonti &Lobjanidze 2004, chap. 7):-- A thief-in-law must never work or have ever worked in or outside prison-- A thief-in-law must not take a wife, start a family or maintain family ties-

- A thief-in-law must not collude with the state in any form-

- A thief-in-law must contribute to the criminal common fund (known as
the obshchak)-- A thief-in-law must be honest with other thieves-- A thief-in-law must be dedicated to the thieves’ idea-

- A thief-in-law must attract new recruits, especially from among the youth-

A thief-in-law must control his prison and impose thievish jurisdiction
there, known as ‘turning it black.’

From these main rules, many other rules followed concerning such things as
how to play cards and how to behave with prisoners of other ranks. Other aspects
reinforced the idea of an exclusive fraternity with clear social boundaries. These rules
framed the social practices of the thieves’ world. Below I briefly describe some of themost important of these practices. These are: the obshchak (communal fund), skhodki(thieves’ courts), koronovanie (‘crowning’), razkoronovanie (‘uncrowning’), andmalyava (dissemination of information). More detailed accounts can be found in
Varese (2001), Volkov (2002), Oleinik (2003) and Glonti & Lobjanidze (2004).
Obshchak: this is the communal fund kept in order to provide mutual aid tothose members of the group who are either ill or in prison. The obshchak can becollected on many levels up from communal cell level, to the level of the prison

17

barracks, the prison itself, whole towns and regions of countries. The funds are often
extorted from ordinary prisoners and citizens. Established thieves-in-law should
contribute from the funds they acquire however. In principle, the obshchak may not
be used for personal enrichment. The funds must be kept by a trusted party who need
not always be a thief-in-law. Misuse of the funds carries heavy punishment up to
death. The obshchak represents what might be called a ‘social insurance’ for mademen.
Skhodki (or skhodniaki): the thieves’ gatherings or courts (Varese, 2001) inwhich decisions are taken. Decisions are often made on accepting new members as
thieves-in-law, disputes are settled between thieves, and business matters are worked
out. In the past, these meetings often occurred in prisons. In the present day, they may
also take place in restaurants, and hotels and can have dozens in attendance or much
fewer. Usually one thief is responsible for its coordination and its proceedings
including responsibility if infiltrated by the police.
Koronovanie (crowning; in Georgian this is known as natvla or ‘baptism’): theritual of becoming a thief-in-law. An initiation ritual involves a thieves’ gathering(skhodka) and the use of a system of referencing, examination of candidates andvoting by those present. If successful, an oath is taken to the brotherhood by therecruit and new tattoos engraved on the body of the newly consecrated - most
famously by depicting an eight-point star on either shoulder. ‘Baptism’ or ‘crowning’requires the recommendation of two already crowned qurdebi and the consent of allpresent. In the past and to some extent in the present it involved being renamed bybeing given a nickname.
Razkoronovanie(‘uncrowning’,

also

known

as

razsvechenieor‘desanctification’): the decision to take the title of qurdi away from someone. This18

may involve physical punishment. It must be agreed upon by all present at skhodka
and be justified somehow. In some cases, a thief may uncrown himself based on goodreasons such as ill health or old age.
Malyava (also known now as vorovskoi progon): historically this was literally
the paper where information would be written to be distributed to the rest of thethieves’ world to let the decisions taken at skhodki be known. This is a practice of
information dissemination and it is an important part of the coordination of thethieves’ network and the recognition of newly-crowned or uncrowned thieves-in-law.
Members of the thieves-in-law rank and their closest associates were known as
the blatnye, the main carriers and developers of the penal subculture. The various
ranks from top to bottom were given colours called masty, meaning ‘suits’ as incards.9 Once initiated, thieves-in-law were formally equal in status and networked
with each other in recruiting and initiating new members, pursuing punishment and‘uncrowning’ those thieves-in-law that had committed transgressions of the thieves’code. The values, rankings and rules of the thieves’ world were reproduced fromcamp to camp.10 Individual reputations and status were mobile and transfer fromcamp to camp would not result in the need for reproving oneself. Moreover, themalyava, the system of communication and directives, allowed individual thieves-inlaw to have a reach beyond their own prison. Thus, working on the White Sea Canalin the early 1930s, Dmitrii Likhachev (in Chalidze 1977, p. 54) described ‘a system of

9

It is widely believed that the Soviet authorities, to repress the political prisoners and control thecamps, created the fraternity of the thieves-in-law. This has never been proved decisively. It is also
possible that new hierarchies formed for purposes of stability, order and self-preservation in the chaosof the new Soviet penal regime (see Varese, 2001)
10
Kaminski (2004) finds similar aspects in the grypsmen subculture in communist Polish prisons. He
puts this down to the institutional environment where camps were laid out over open spaces andprisoners often lived in communal barracks and therefore had the opportunity to spread a common setof values. Gambetta (2009) adds that it also created an incentive to do as a mechanism to reduce
conflict as open space and greater interactions tended to breed violence.

19

“collective beliefs” that is remarkably uniform among criminals with different ethnicroots.’
There are many accounts of the structure of the thieves-in-law hierarchy inthe prison (Gurov 1995; Oleinik 2003; Dolgova 2003; Glonti & Lobjanidze 2004).
The thieves always top the hierarchy but have men below them, known as avtoriteti or‘authorities’. According to Oleinik (2003), at least since the 1980s authoritative
criminals known as smotryashchie in Russian, makarublebi in Georgian, or‘overseers’ in English who look after the thieves’ interests have come into existence.
The overseers are the direct representatives of the thieves-in-law. They might lookafter the obshchak in a cell or prison, manage access to and support in the prison
hospital, and supervise card games.
The overseers also direct the activities of those tasked with doing the will of
the thieves, known as shesterki (literally ‘sixers’) or caretakers, collecting money andresources, carrying out punishments, and creating disturbances if directed to do so.
The shesterki were usually members of a larger group: those that supported thethieves and refused to work, known as horoshlaki in Russian or in Georgian kaibichebi literally, goodfellas. Below these are various stripes of lower caste prisoners.
There are those called the muzhiki, ‘peasants’ or ‘workers’, who did not support thethieves’ law, engaged in work and were often exploited. Below that are the kozli,
literally ‘goats’, who have no standing as prisoners and might be whistleblowers or
colluders with the regime. At the bottom are the opushennie such as homosexuals,
known as petukhi, literally ‘cockerels’, and paedophiles who were considered thelowest rank of prisoner to be disrespected and used by the others.
Myriad rules formed regulating behaviour between and amongst the different
ranks, concerning many aspects of prison life including where people slept, who they20

ate with, and the use and ownership of belongings. The thieves-in-law, overseers,
caretakers and goodfellas were all considered as living po ponyatiyam in Russian or
gagebashi in Georgian, that is, ‘in the understandings’. The ‘understandings’ are thethieves’ code of honour; their law. The lower level workers, goats and cocks weredistinguished as lower level ‘suits’ and not ‘in the understandings’. Figure 1.1 showsthese relationships based on Glonti & Lobjanidze (2004, p. 163) and Dolgova (2003,
p. 355-356).

21

Thieves-in-Law&
Authorities(The Blatnye)Overseers

Black and Grey
‘Suits’: those inthe‘Understandings’

Goodfellas&
Caretakers

Workers'Goats'Colluders
Whistleblowers

Red and Blue
‘Suits’: thoseoutside the‘Understandings’'Cocks'Homosexuals
Paedophiles

Figure 1.1: Prison Hierarchy

The period up to the 1940s represents a time when the thieves’ world
maintained a uniform character with distinctions, whether along ethnic lines orotherwise, subsumed by a common obedience to the thieves’ code. However,following the end of WWII the uniformity of the thieves’ world began to crack apart,shaken to its very foundations by the war itself. Requiring extra manpower to halt the
Nazis’ onslaught in Operation Barbarossa, Stalin released prisoners from the camps.

22Those thieves-in-law that went to the front to fight the Nazis were accused ofbetraying the original thieves’ code that forbade collusion with the state and weretermed ‘bitches’. The so-called Bitches’ War (such’ya voina) that ensued between the
traditional thieves and those ‘bitches’ that had broken the code virtually destroyed thecriminal fraternity following WWII. It was not just this conflict that weakened thethieves however. The internal contradictions and inflexibility of the thieves’ own code
made it difficult to sustain it in a time of turmoil. Glonti and Lobjanidze (2004, p. 3341) suggest that this time of scarcity led to the over-extortion of the prison labourers,
the muzhiki, who then increased their resistance to the blatnye. Furthermore, themassive influx of combat-hardened arrestees that moved into the camps following
Stalin’s post-war paranoia created groups who tended towards the bitches as opposedto the traditional thieves also known as zakonniki. The bitches’ collusion with campauthorities also won them influential friends in the administration who were notopposed to eliminating the influence of the zakonniki.
Following WWII changes to the criminal code hurt the thieves-in-law further.
State ownership of property meant that thievery was a crime against the state andcould be harshly punished, and the 4th June 1947 order of the Presidium of theSupreme Soviet ‘On the strengthening of criminal responsibility for stealing,’ worked
as a pretext to have many thieves executed (Ibid p. 37). The dawn of de-Stalinisation
did not initially halt the attack on the thieves-in-law. By 1956 ITK-6 (a correctional
labour camp) had been set up in the northern Urals at Solikamsk that was intended tohold only thieves-in-law in order to separate them from the bulk of ordinary prisoners.
Thus, by the end of the 1950s, the institution of thieves-in-law had been so weakened
that it had almost ceased to exist.

23

Yet, as Chalidze stated in 1977 (p. 34), ‘despite official claims, theunderworld has survived to this day, especially that sector of it known as the thieves’world which deserves to be regarded as a social institution since it has its own internalcohesion and ethical code.’ However, by this later Soviet period ‘the collective
system of beliefs’ described by Likachev had begun to break up along ethnic lines. By
1985 the Interior Ministry of the Soviet Union had noted an ethnic distinction andongoing struggle between the Slavic thieves and the Georgians (Glonti & Lobjanidze
2004, p. 125). A major factor souring relations was the respective attitudes to thethieves’ code. Georgians had become willing to start families and create dynasties,
acquire wealth and own property (Serio & Razinkin 1994, p. 2) The main mention ofthis difference is the references (Ibid; Volkov 2002; Oleinik 2003; Glonti &Lobjanidze 2004; Utitsin 2006) to the 1982 skhodka (thieves’ gathering) in Tbilisi inwhich the Georgian thief-in-law Jaba Ioseliani advocated that the thieves move intobusiness and politics in an attempt to maximise state capture by criminal groups. Thiswas rejected by the Russian contingent present, and most notably by the respected
Russian thief Vas’ya Brilliant, who adhered to the old norms and way of doing things.
Ioseliani did not listen to Vas’ya and instead very much followed his own advice,
eventually leading to his dominant position in Georgia by 1992 having usurped thePresident, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, in a coup.11
Though it would be wrong to see a complete break between the thieves-in-lawof the Slavic north and the thieves of the Caucasian south, the criminal world
eventually introduced new terms for those Georgians who bore the title thief-in-law
but did not live by the original thieves’ understandings. They became known as
apel’siny, ‘oranges,’ or lavrushnniki, laurel leaves. Some may have even simply
11

Some of the details of Ioseliani’s life are discussed in Slider (1997), Ekdahl and Goodman (2001)
and Wheatley (2005). Ioseliani was a bank robber qurdi as well a PhD possessing expert on Georgiantheatre.

24

bought the title from already made men.12 As will be seen these developments play acentral role in this study, however, the subjects of this study are not only the apel’siny
but all those that made up the criminal fraternity of the thieves-in-law in Georgia: thekanonieri qurdebi.

1.2 The Kanonieri Qurdebi: A Research Question

The above brief overview of the present day situation in Georgia and thehistorical roots of the qurdebi was intended to give the reader some context to theresearch question that this study deals with. There is a simple observation to be madefrom the foregoing from which the research question emerges: the qurdebi haveexisted for a long time and that time period has seen some huge upheavals and socialtransformations. From Stalin’s repressions to Saakashvili’s present day anti-mafia
campaign, many generations have passed and a lot has changed. Saakashvili’s antimafia policy is not the first time that the qurdebi have been attacked. Yet it seems thaton this occasion the state has been very successful. The level of resistance to thestate’s policies appears to have been minimal and the government has alreadydeclared victory. The question then that this study attempts to answer is:‘How do we account for the low levels of resilience to state attack of those criminal
actors carrying the status marker kanonieri qurdi in Georgia since 2005?’

12

This practice was not exclusively Georgian; there are cases of this outside Georgia (see Varese 2001,
Lambert, 2003). However, the use of the new term apel’siny specifically for Georgians suggests that it
was more prevalent amongst Georgians than elsewhere.

25

The rest of the study focuses entirely on this question. The study does not give
any further description of the thieves’ world or the history of thieves-in-law. Suchaccounts have already been given elsewhere, the best of these being Chalidze (1977),
Glazov (1977), Gurov (1995), and Varese (2001). Furthermore, the study does notprovide general background chapters on recent Georgian history and politics. Thesecan be found in detailed accounts in Suny (1994), Wheatley (2005), King (2008) and
Sullivan (2010).
Instead, the study will unfold in the following way: in the next chapter I will
introduce the approach to understanding the resilience of organised crime groups that
I have adopted and how this frames the structure of the whole study. In chapter 3 I go
on to discuss the research methods I employed in pursuing an answer to this question,
before producing the analysis itself in chapters 4-10. Chapter 11 then concludes thethesis.

26

2. Trust Networks: Understanding How Criminal
Groups Change and Survive

The research question - ‘how do we account for the low levels of resilience tostate attack of those criminal actors carrying the status marker kanonieri qurdi inGeorgia since 2005?’ – is fundamentally concerned with understanding andexplaining variation in resilience of the kanonieri qurdebi to state predation. Thissection therefore discusses the best way to theorise the kanonieri qurdebi andanalyses the concept of resilience. The present chapter aims to construct theoverarching theoretical framework for the study and act as a guide to the structure andprogression of the subsequent chapters as well as giving clear definitions for key
concepts and identifying the main variables of the study. I now turn to exploring how
to conceptualise the kanonieri qurdebi before moving on to the concept of resilience.

2.1 Resilience of What?

The very grammar of the word resilience requires that we answer two initialquestions: What is the resilience of? What is the resilience to? Below, I will briefly
address these two questions. In answering these questions, a more primary,underlying question is evident: how is resilience best defined; what constitutes
resilience? In terms of the first question – the resilience of what? – it will be argued

27

that the qurdebi are a mafia. This will be discussed in chapters 4 and 5 where it will
be shown that the qurdebi attempt to monopolise protection and dispute resolution
services, the essential function of a mafia. The very concept of mafia however is aloaded one which can obscure more than it enlightens (Serio 2008, chapter 1).
Therefore, I employ the term in a very specific analytic sense. Mafias are defined hereas autonomous entities that pursue a monopoly on protection provision services based
ultimately on force within a given territory (Tilly 1985; Gambetta 1993).
The qurdebi then, as a mafia, are engaged in more than just organised crimewhere this means, as classically defined by Schelling (1984), the monopoly on theprovision of some illegal good or service over a given territory in the underworld. A
mafia is more fundamental than that. While it may engage in organised crime its mainfunction is providing protection that even organised crime groups need to operate.
This then would define the qurdebi by what they do. Mafias, on this view, are asubspecies of organised crime of which the key feature is the governance andregulation function performed in illegal and unprotected markets (Varese 2010). This
argument suggests that the qurdebi are, essentially, in the same business as the state(Nozick 1974; Reuter 1985; Tilly 1985; Weber 1992). Yet, this view also suggeststhat mafias might be analysed as enterprises selling a service on the protection market(Arlachhi 1988; Gambetta 1993).
Emphasising one or the other aspect of the mafia has been criticised (Paoli
2003), as ‘there is nothing to stop an organisation from selling protection and being agovernance structure at the same time’ (Franzini 1995, p. 57). Meanwhile, there areclearly other salient features to mafias such as the utilisation of corruption to
manipulate state institutions (Anderson 1995) and the employment of centralisedorganisational structure (Franzini 1995; Leeson and Rogers n.d.). The attraction of the28

protection-as-governance approach is that it brings the mafia down to a single
essence. Any organisation that attempts to monopolise the sale of protection in illegal
markets is a mafia; whether or not it is centralised or utilises state corruption might beimportant aspects of its functioning but these elements are not its definitive feature.
However, while functionally the qurdebi will be shown to be a mafia, they arealso actors who must coordinate to achieve a degree of collective action. They must
implement oversight, regulation and governance of the group of all those with thestatus marker qurdebi. The way the qurdebi, or any mafia, self-govern gives anotherperspective on what the qurdebi are. Following the work of Charles Tilly (2006), thequrdebi may be seen as a belonging to a form of governance that Tilly terms ‘trust
networks’. Trust networks, according to Tilly, should be juxtaposed with authoritative
organisations such as firms or bureaucracies and collaborative institutions such as
markets: ‘along with authoritative organisations and collaborative institutions, trust
networks constitute one of the three main ways that humans organise valued, longterm, high-risk enterprises’ (Tilly 2006, p. 25). The key elements of the ideal typetrust network are high barriers to entry and exit, and the placing of valued, long-term
resources at the risk of malfeasance, mistakes or failures of others in the network.
Trust networks demand a lot from participants in terms of conformity and obligations
yet they help lower transaction costs, provide shared rights and increase security.
Participants in the network enjoy access to communal resources and the benefits ofsocial insurance against disaster and disability. In this sense trust networks operate tosecure collective benefits just as authoritative organisations and collaborative
institutions do.
However, trust networks constitute a different form of coordination andgovernance and operate through different mechanisms (Thompson 2003). Most

29

basically, authoritative organisations employ top-down authority, collaborative
institutions such as markets are de-centralised and structured by the price mechanism.
In contrast to these governance forms, trust networks depend to a greater degree on
relations of trust, solidarity, and reciprocity in order to govern themselves. This
follows the economics literature in which network forms of governance arejuxtaposed with ideal type markets and hierarchies (Williamson 1983; Thorelli 1986;
Burt 1995; Thompson 2003). In regulating collective action, networks that institutetrust and solidarity can serve to achieve economies of scale, specialisation, andreductions in transaction costs, just like markets and hierarchies (Thorelli 1986).
Networks therefore are another form of organisation that, when activated, canreduce transaction costs through the arrangement of ties coordinated and governed byrelations of trust. Tilly’s trust network is further distinguished from otherinterpersonal networks by the following features that all strongly pertain to the
kanonieri qurdebi: a) the relations between those in the network has a given name(e.g. Knights Templar, Freemasons, Cosa Nostra, Camorra) mutually known to its
members; b) involvement in these relations gives all members some minimum ofshared rights and obligations; c) members can communicate and represent their sharedmembership; d) members mark and police boundaries that separate them from theoutside world (Tilly 2006, p. 44). The differences between trust networks and othergovernance types are laid out below:

30

Feature

Governance Type
Authoritative

Collaborative

Organisation

Institution

Ease of entry and variable

easy

Trust Network

rare and costly

exit
Control

over concentrated

pooled resources
Vulnerability

sharedand variable

collective
to medium

low

high

medium to high

high

low

variable

mistakes of others
Stakes of exclusion

mediumRatio of horizontal highto vertical ties

Table 2.1: main features of governance structures

Adapted from Tilly, (2006 p.42)

In reality, most collective action exhibits characteristics of all three forms ofgovernance and so trust networks may also have aspects of other types. Yet they can
be clearly distinguished from the others in analytic terms. For example, compared tocollaborative institutions trust networks firstly, put their members at a greater risk of
the failures and malfeasance of others; secondly, operate more exclusively, drawing
from a minority within the larger population with high barriers to entry into the
network; thirdly, create high exit barriers from the network for made members
making exit costly and rare; and fourthly, although trust networks to some degree
employ coercion and capital (punishment and rewards) they always rely in the mainon commitment mechanisms in structuring relations amongst members. Lastly, thecosts of exclusion for members of a trust network are higher than in either
authoritative organisations or collaborative institutions.

31

As will be clear in this study, the qurdebi display many of these defining
characteristics of trust networks. The category is useful as it brings together two
concepts, ‘trust’ and ‘network,’ that have always been pertinent to the study oforganised crime and mafias. In his definitive study of the Sicilian Mafia, Gambetta(1993) argued that the dearth of trust in Sicilian society provided a market for mafia
services, and this factor accounted for why the mafia had come to dominate on partsof the island. This leads to a curious question: in a low trust society why trust themafia? Tilly answers this by employing the concept of trust in a relational sense,
arguing that regardless of attitudinal dispositions trust is produced and inheres incertain forms of relationship where the stakes for trustworthiness are high (Tilly, 2006
p. 25). Thus, actors who coordinate in a network through relations that demand andproduce trust inherently are at an advantage to those who are excluded from suchnetworks as regards producing mutually beneficial collective goods. These benefits tie
in trustworthiness amongst network members, especially if trust cannot be secured
outside the trust network through the guarantees of a legal framework and state
sanctioned punishments (Stefes 2006).
Similarly, scholars of organised crime have found a use in the ‘network’
concept. For example, for Morselli (2003, p. 386), organised crime groups comprise
an informal network of patron-client relationships. Reviewing the organised crime
literature, McIllwain (1999, p. 303) argues that the notion of networks is ‘a common
underpinning’ of those conceptualisations of organised crime as organisations,patronage relations, or enterprises. ‘Network’ is being used in these accounts in a
specific sense however. Ties between 3 or more actors can be called a ‘network’ but
this is not analytically useful. Instead, ‘network’ in this study, as already mentioned,

32

denotes a governance form for regulating socio-economic coordination (Smith-Doer& Powell 1994; Podolny & Page 1998; Thompson 2003; Tilly 2006).
Thus, in summary, in terms of the question, the resilience of what, I am
interested in the continuing existence of a group of actors who engage in mafia
activities, yet who also invest in a specific social institution known as the thieves’world which consists of a set of preserved ritualised practices and status markers
guided by a well-articulated, codified, yet fluctuating body of rules itself based onwider, more diffuse norms of behaviour. The symbols and narratives that frame thepractices of this institution are a further constitutive aspect of the institution itself.
The actors coordinate, reflexively identify themselves by a common name, maintainclaims on each other in terms of rights and obligations, have shared trademarks of
their collective identity and police the boundaries that separate them from others.
These aspects are indicative of a specific form of social organisation known as trust
networks.
Given that the kanonieri qurdebi fit this definition and maintained a viable
existence for decades, we now need to deal with the other part of the researchquestion regarding the decline in resilience and viability which seems apparent since
the state attack in 2005. This implies the question: what is the resilience to? And what
elements constitute resilience?

2.2 Resilience to What?

In terms of the question – resilience to what? – the study is interested inunderstanding how the trust network of the kanonieri qurdebi and the institution of
the thieves’ world into which its members are socialised have been resilient to a33

variety of exogenous shocks that should have theoretically changed the dynamics of
the institution and ultimately posed threats to its existence. Which shocks are these?
They include such things as: the clampdown on ‘dangerous recidivists’ following thedeath of Stalin in 1953; the ‘bitches’ war’ between the old thieves-in-law andreformist thieves (bitches) in the Gulag; the clampdowns on the thieves-in-law
following personnel changes at the top of the communist party in Soviet Georgia in
the 1970s and 1980s when the thieves had already infiltrated the Soviet second
economy; the catalytic changes to this second economy during perestroika; thecollapse of the Georgian economy after the dissolution of the USSR; the wars
between Georgia and South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the early 1990s and the civil warof 1993; the rise of new, violent criminal actors such as ‘banditi’ (Volkov 2002), andmilitias such as Mkhedrioni (see chapter 7); and the new ‘anti-Mafia’ policies adopted
by the Georgian state since 2005.
All of these exogenous shocks presented challenges and threats to those actors
carrying the institutionalised and recognised name of kanonieri qurdebi. Due tolimitations of time and resources, the study has a narrow focus on the post-Soviet
period and the immediately preceding time period, the 1980s and perestroika. Thus,
the current thesis studies the resilience, or lack of it, to the Georgian state’s anti-mafia
crackdown which began around 2005.13 The outcome or dependent variable to be
explained then is the level of resilience at that time. It is now necessary to explicate
the component parts of this variable and the extent to which it can be measured.

13

For details of the anti-mafia policy, see chapter 6.

34

2.3 The Concept of Resilience
Generally, resilience is defined as the ability of an entity to adapt itself andregain former attributes following shocks. The concept of resilience has long beenutilised in the discipline of ecology. Ecologists have sought to turn this concept into
an operationalisable and measurable variable in the study of ecosystems. Social andpolitical scientists, for their part, have tried to transfer and apply the concept to socioeconomic systems (Gunderson et al. 1995; Levin et al. 1998; Gunderson 2000).
Various studies attempt to understand why some organisations or institutions persist
through hostile environments while others fail or change completely (Hannan &Freeman 1984; Haveman 1992; Barnett & Carroll 1995). These studies employ theconcept of resilience because, as opposed to that of persistence, resilience must be ofsomething and to something. The concept of resilience, then, presupposes exogenous
shocks or disturbances (Carpenter et al. 2001; Bouchard 2007). For an entity to beresilient there must be some risk from external turbulence despite which the entity
persists. This touches on a closely related concept, resistance, defined in ecology as
the magnitude of external pressure needed to bring about disturbance in an ecosystemin the first place. Resistance is an important component part of resilience according toCarpenter et al. (2001; Adger 2000). Along with resistance, these studies emphasise
adaptive capacity and learning, and a degree of self-organisation as further essential
elements in constituting the resilience of some entity to external disturbance.
A well-argued and clear appropriation of these ideas in the criminologicalliterature is Bouchard’s (2007) study of the resilience of illegal drug markets.
Bouchard suggests that three elements should be measured to understand theresilience of these markets. These are vulnerability (that is, level of resistance) to35

exogenous disturbances, elasticity in the supply of resources for recovery, andadaptation of structure to reduce vulnerability once a disturbance has impacted. For
example, networks of actors on the drug market might gain protection from state
attention through corrupt ties thereby lowering vulnerability to shock, have highelasticity in supply of potential workers for drug dealing due to low recruitment
barriers, and adapt towards smaller and looser networks that are harder to seriously
affect if impacted.
The argument follows then, using Bouchard’s terminology, that to observe
resilience in the case of the qurdebi we would need evidence of adaptations once
shocked, low vulnerability and the maintaining of elasticity in supply of humanresources. In terms of trust networks, Tilly (2006) also discusses four areas that hebelieves affect the survival of trust networks. These areas overlap strongly with theecological construct of resilience. I turn to look at these now.

2.4 Four Key Variables in the Study of Resilience in Trust
Networks

The four variables that Tilly (2006, chapter 3) identifies as significant for thesurvival of trust networks are:1) supply of resources or sustenance2) external relations
3) maintaining boundaries
4) internal relations between a network’s members

36

These four variables constitute resilience of a trust network and this study is
structured around these four categories. As this is crucial for understanding what
follows below I give a brief discussion of each area identifying their key components.
Sustenance: trust networks need to maintain a supply of resources to continue
their activities. Fundamentally, this might refer to personnel, as mentioned below, but
it can also refer to funding and the acquisition of assets. The qurdebi pool resources in
the collective fund, the obshchak, and according to Tilly three factors are important insustaining such communal assets. These are: connections with supply sources, level ofsequestration, and amount of available resources. I will look at these aspects in moredetail below with specific reference to organised crime.
In terms of organised crime groups and mafias, the most obvious example ofsuch sustenance is the funds, favours, and benefits generated through the provision ofprotection and dispute resolution services. As Gambetta (1993) and Varese (2001)
emphasise, the mafia should be an autonomous supplier of this protection andtherefore maintain links with a diverse range of clients of whom they are independent.
For the qurdebi this means handling a diverse portfolio of clients seeking protection
or dispute resolution. Examples range from politicians looking to get out the vote, togangs seeking protection, to businesses looking to enforce illegal cartel agreements.
By maintaining such diversity the effects of uncontrollable external changes, such as
deaths, a volatile economy, and political change can be reduced.
Furthermore, mafias need to sequester resources from their clients in the formof regular protection payments, shares in companies, or political favours, however
over-predation can lead to draining their own lifeblood. Thus a balance needs to be
struck.

37

However, mafias naturally sustain themselves better in an environment where
there are greater available resources. This might mean a good economic climate forcompanies that the mafia can gain access to in order to extort or racketeer. However,whilst the mafia has an interest in maintaining conditions of mistrust, it is notbeneficial to entirely discourage people from operating businesses as, in conditions ofscarcity, competition and predation on a mafia, as a trust network, is more likely.
External relations: trust networks cannot be entirely isolated from the larger
population they are embedded within. For one thing, the resources the trust network
garners can be the target of predatory actors such as states or other violent trust
networks. Therefore, nurturing ties with strategic actors outside the network can add
to a trust network’s viability. In ecological terms, it can increase resistance and lower
vulnerability to exogenous shocks in the first place. In the study of organised crime
relations with state actors are a key element in understanding how organised crimegroups survive (Arlacchi 1988; Hill 2006; Schneider & Schneider 2003; Jacobs et al2001). Thus, this is an important element that the study will address.
Maintaining boundaries: barriers to entry and exit in a trust network arevariable. However, Tilly (2006) argues that a trust network is more viable when it
retains exclusionary practices and maintains clear distinctions between inside andoutside. This is important for bringing about a ‘we’ feeling and inducing commitment
to the group. It is important in ensuring exclusivity and, through this exclusivity, thevalue of the membership. Maintenance of a collective reputation keeps membershipof a mafia valuable as, for a mafia, reputation helps to reduce production costs by
substituting for the actual use of direct violence (Gambetta 1993). An individual able
to penetrate barriers to entry and become a mafia member reaps economies of scale inutilising the brand name of the mafia as a commodity that can be sold in the market

38

for protection and dispute resolution. Therefore, however, it is very important toensure that only high-quality individuals are taken on, or only those who are
genuinely deserving of the title that is bestowed upon them, as unqualified candidates
can harm the collective reputation of the mafia brand.
Internal Relations: the structure of relationships, the incentives and rules ofengagement, are important for the vulnerability of a trust network to external shocks
and continuing viability. Tilly (2006) stresses areas where transformations can affecta trust network’s survival. Firstly, members must maintain and preferably increase
mutual attraction. This means shared backgrounds, norms, and identities can help inmaintaining a trust network. An influx of people of different backgrounds might alter
this balance. Secondly, a trust network is negatively affected by the formation ofcliques or factions as this creates competing power centres that can cause internal
conflict. Thirdly, trust networks are made up mainly of horizontal ties and lack strong
centralisation, however rallying round a charismatic figure can, in the short-term, help
trust networks survive if this increases commitment or allows decisions to be taken
more speedily. However, in the long-term this can be damaging as reliance on one
individual becomes precarious and personalised; as the network becomes morehierarchical, succession can become an issue and this also engenders the potential for
conflict. Finally, as mentioned earlier, Tilly (2006) suggests that trust networks arecharacterised by a reliance on commitment as an incentive for members of the trust
network to participate in the network’s activities. However, where commitment isdiminished and a trust network comes to rely on capital or coercion to achieve
participation, the network can be crippled by short-termism, and the attractions ofother sources outside the network that offer greater capital gains or stronger coercion
can emerge as a threat.

39

2.4.1 Summary of Variables and Effects of Change

Theoretically for this study, resilience is the dependent variable and so theareas that Tilly identified above are better conceptualised as outcome variables
fluctuating over time and constituting the attribute of resilience in a trust network toshocks from other actors, most primarily states and other trust networks. Below(Table 2.2) each variable is given with the effect of change in each on the survival of
the trust network as Tilly (2006) sees it. It should be noted that variation can move inthe opposite direction from the ones stated in the Table 2.2 as well, and this would
have the opposite effect as the one given below:

40

Number

Variable

Theoretical Variation in
Resilience

1

Boundaries: sharpening boundaries+

2

External connections: increase in ties to +powerful

3

Sustenance:increasing

sequesterof +resources
4

Sustenance: enhanced connections with +supply sources

5

Sustenance: increase in available resources

6Internal

relations:heighten+mutual +attraction
7

Internal relations: formation of cliques-

8Internal relations: centralisation around +/charismatic figure

9Internal relations: reliance on only capital, coercion or commitment as incentives

Table 2.2: variables constituting resilience of trust networks and effects of change on survival
Key: + increase in resilience. – decrease in resilience. +/- variable effect on resilience.

Adapted from Tilly (2006 p. 60)

Whilst Tilly describes these changes and their perceived effects on theviability of a trust network he does not attempt to explain why change occurs. This
study will describe the changes in these areas and their effects as well as taking eachof these variables and attempting to uncover possible explanations for the changes
that occurred in the case of the kanonieri qurdebi. Certain potential causal factors are
identified from theory and discussed. These are:411) Varying agency costs
2) Varying opportunity costs
3) Changes in the structure of economy4) Competition in the environment5) Size of the trust network
6) State policies towards crime and organised crime

As an in-depth case study, the thesis aims to reveal changes in the four
elements (sustenance, boundaries, internal and external relations) of the dependent
variable over time, present hypotheses to explain these changes and, where possible,
test these. However, the study is in line with the organisational change literature in
not assuming that change in the trust network is brought about by perfectly rational
strategy in response to threats or by any overarching plan to increase resilience.
Instead, there are many confounding factors that do not allow us to know exactly what
drives changes.
Changes may be made to the fundamental core of an organisation such as its
mission and authority structure, or to the periphery such as changes of personnel. The
literature argues that there are two types of pressure that might induce such change:internal and external. The former concerns the size of the organisation, age (March
1981; Hannan & Freeman 1984) and momentum in the rate of change over time
(Kelly & Amburgey 1991); the latter refers to changes in technology andcompetitiveness of the environment (Barnett & Carroll 1995). However,environmental pressures are neither necessary nor sufficient to bring about suchchanges. Changes can be made in response to threats, without the presence of any

42threat, or on the basis of predictions about potential threats and possible shocks.
However, inertia can also occur despite threats (Hannan and Freeman 1977; 1984).
Haveman (1992) lists a number of factors that can induce such inertia. These
are both internal and external to the organisation. They include sunk costs, internal
political wrangling, collective action problems and imperfect information. In terms of
the latter, Hannan & Freeman (1984 p. 151) are unequivocal that where theenvironment is highly uncertain or changing quickly there is a high risk that enactingchange will be deleterious for an organisation: ‘learning and adjusting structureenhances the chance of survival only if the speed of response is commensurate withthe temporal patterns of relevant environments.’ Inertia is more likely to occur whereorganisational change is slower than environmental change. Yet this does not meanthat inertia is an optimal strategy either, and change can still be beneficial even withimperfect information if there is an existential threat to an organisation (Haveman,
1992 p. 49).
In sum, there are many variable elements in explaining why an organisation
changes and how this might affect resilience to shocks and survivability generally.
Change is inevitably the product of agents acting within a bounded organisational andstructural context. Whether the rate and depth of change is induced by threats oropportunities in the environment, and the level of risk of making a change involved,
are all variable factors. As a case study of one trust network the research here will not
be able to produce clear-cut answers as to the degrees of rationality and intentionality
in driving change in the qurdebi. Instead, the thesis aims to, first and foremost,describe the changes, and where possible point to relationships between variables,
suggest links and significant connections, and estimate potential causal effects, thesize of such effects and the mechanisms underlying these.

43Ultimately, by explaining variation in the four aspects of resilience the thesis
aims to explicate how a decline in the qurdebi’s resilience to state attack occurred andmake tentative conclusions regarding general principles in explaining the effects ofanti-mafia policies, change and decline in organised crime groups and trust networks
more generally.

2.5 Structure of the Study
I describe here where and how the study will deal with the aspects ofresilience described above from chapter 4 onwards (chapter 3 deals with researchmethodology). What follows then may be seen as a guide to the structure of the study
and the content of future chapters.

Chapters 4 and 5 – Sustenance: These chapters look at the qurdebi’s activities
both during communist and post-communist times. Their activities are described and
it is argued that the qurdebi operated as a mafia in both time periods taking up
opportunities based on a dearth of trust. However, supply of resources in these twotime periods was based on fundamentally different opportunity structures. In theSoviet period, the criminalisation of most capitalist activity created a large anddiverse second economy that provided an important supply source for mafias involvedin protection and dispute resolution. The post-Soviet epoch instead allowed capitalist
activity but the weakness of the state fostered opportunities for mafias in the absenceof securely protected property rights. It is argued that the post-Soviet period ushered
in greater sources of sustenance and opportunities for growth. On the face of it, theincreased availability of resources and diversity of supply should increase the viabilityof the qurdebi.
44

Chapter 6 – External Relations: I deal here with the affect of external relations
on the qurdebi’s resilience. I plot the relations between the qurdebi and the state inrecent times and examine the strategies employed by the qurdebi to fend off predatory
attention. I then go on to discuss the changes in this relationship since the Rose
Revolution in Georgia and argue that these are vital in explaining an increase invulnerability and a subsequent decline in resilience.

Chapter 7 – Boundaries: here I show that certain changes have occurred inmaintaining boundaries in terms of barriers to entry on recruitment. Barriers to entry
appear to have been lowered in the 1990s with some people becoming qurdebi
without the correct prison experience and some even just buying the title. I present
certain hypotheses for why this might be the case and the data that support these andargue that such blurring of boundaries can have negative effects on resilience.

Chapter 8 and 9 – Internal Relations: these chapters deal with the first three
aspects of internal relations laid out above: factionalism, centralisation, andcommitment incentives. Chapter 8 looks at the changes in the structure of the qurdebi
since the collapse of communism and identifies a growing trend towards a centralised
factionalism. Possible explanations for this are explored and potential consequences
discussed. Chapter 9 deals with the types of commitment inducing mechanisms thatare produced in the thieves’ world. It discusses the original law and the lifestyle itbrought about, particularly how elements of the lifestyle created growing costs on exit
as well as affective and normative ties to the thieves’ world. Reviewing the changes inthese elements the chapter suggests that some of these mechanisms have been45

weakened and replaced by incentives for enrichment. It is suggested that this would
have negative consequences for the viability of the qurdebi.

Chapter 10 - Boundaries: Drawing on survey data, secondary sources andinterviews, this chapter argues that the thieves’ distinction as a status group has
plausibly been affected by the adaptations we have seen. It discusses the increasingly
negative public attitudes towards the qurdebi and questions the ability of the qurdebi
to maintain a coherent symbolic boundary as a reputable criminal elite.

2.6 Conclusion

This study then will plot the variation in the areas of sustenance, external
relations, internal relations, and boundaries as constitutive of resilience to exogenous
attack. The study attempts to portray the driving factors behind changes in resilience
as opposed to just describing the changes. Though reference will be made to theimmediate period before the collapse of communism where necessary, the focus of
the study will be mainly the post-Soviet period. This period was a time of great
upheaval in Georgian society, economy and politics. It was thus an unpredictable anduncertain time and the speed of change was fast. In conditions of uncertainty andswift change, a trust network’s transformations and subsequent adaptations are evenmore fraught.
The next chapter moves on from these definitional and theoretical issues. I
now turn to the practical, methodological process where I identify the specificresearch methods that were adopted to investigate the research question.

46

3. Research Design, Data Collection, and Analysis‘Social conventions are a perfect tyranny among the Georgians….Again and again I
have arrived half dead at a village, tortured by a bad saddle…and I have been madeto wait…for hours…while they prepared a feast…when I spoke of going to bed, I
would learn, to my unspeakable horror, that they had gone to kill a sheep.’

Odette Keun, In the Land of the Golden Fleece: Through Independent Menchevist
Georgia (1924) in Chetwin (2001, p. 182)

Such a negative and delicate phenomenon as organised crime makes it a tricky
area to research and even more so in a foreign context. Not only is it considered to be
dangerous, but from a practical point of view ‘organised crime probably rates as oneof the most difficult areas to collect data’ (Rawlinson 2008, p. 353). It was therefore
difficult to know where to start in 2007 when I began my PhD. I had, however,already had some experience in Georgia. In 2002 I taught English for three months in
Tbilisi and I went back in 2006 to do an internship at an NGO precisely when theanti-mafia campaign was starting up. From this point, in principle, I should haveengaged in the straightforward process of acquainting myself with this interesting area
to research, thinking up a research question, utilising theory to make connections
between phenomena and narrow my scope, and designed a research plan to be carriedout. Unfortunately, it was never that simple. This chapter describes the research
process itself. I try to do this in some detail to inform the reader how I got from my47

area of interest to my research question, theory, design, data collection and analysis. I
also offer this account as a constitutive part of the scientific enterprise of accountable,
open research that may be, if necessary, replicated by others.
The chapter unfolds in the following way: firstly, I describe how I developed
the research area and how this initial issue informed the research approach eventuallytaken. I then discuss the operationalisation and validity of concepts used before giving
an account of the data sources used and how data was collected. The analysis of thisdata is then examined. Finally, I discuss limitations of the study, ethical issues, andhow these impacted the eventual research design.

3.1 Developing a Research Question and Approach

Having an area of interest and funnelling this down into a workable researchquestion and usable concepts was a torturous process. This was not helped by the
topic or chosen research site. As an under-studied area of the world, research on
Georgia tends to come from fields such as international relations, history andlinguistics. It was unclear therefore, what exactly should be the right question to ask
and what types of data would be available to answer any questions I might develop.
Pressure on passing end of year qualifying tests precluded an immediate field-trip andthe adoption of an entirely data-driven grounded theoretical approach. However, adearth of secondary data and a lack of background knowledge limited thedevelopment of research questions and the identification of appropriate theory. At thispoint I was unsure if the research should be about hypothesis testing, explaining andgeneralizing or about creating theory and description. Many standard methods
textbooks in criminology assume that ‘social scientists already possess well48

developed, well-articulated, testable theories,’ whereas ‘nothing could be further fromthe truth’ (Ragin 2004, p. 127).
I therefore conducted a pilot trip to Georgia for around six weeks in 2008.
This proved to be very fruitful. On the basis of this trip, I was able to more fully
understand the processes occurring in Georgia and develop a better sense of theresearch question I wanted to ask. I developed connections with key respondents,
identified gatekeepers who could enable me to negotiate access to important primary,
documentary, sources and was able to evaluate how realistic certain sources of data
would be to tap. During and after this field trip my research question came more into
focus. I was able to relate theory and literature better to the project and I developed amuch more robust research design in preparation for a second, prolonged fieldtrip ofover five months in 2009. The research question that was worked out and the type ofdata that was accessible suggested treating the kanonieri qurdebi in Georgia as a casestudy of the resilience of a trust network engaged in extra-legal activity.
Adopting a qualitative case study approach did not mean discarding the rulethat ‘non-statistical research will produce more reliable results if researchers pay
attention to the rules of scientific inference’ (King et. al 1994, p. 6) Such rules include
primarily dealing with empirical observations, using falsifiable theory to guide what
to observe as implications of theory, and making inferences about the unobservable,from both samples to populations and facts to concepts. Such inferential reasoning isalways uncertain but can be employed probabilistically. This type of approachrequires the careful selection of units of analysis and cases, observations, variables,
and the definitions and measures of these.
Good case study research pays attention to such standards. However, suchresearch does not necessarily follow all the rules of quantitative research design. A

49

clear issue is case selection. In case studies, researchers select cases deliberatively
rather than randomly. They often select on the dependent variable and choose novariance designs where the dependent variable remains constant across cases orwithin a case. They might also alter, redefine, and reformulate hypotheses based ondata rather than simply proving or disproving a proposition (Ragin 2004). However,this need not render explanations produced by case studies useless if the professedgoal of the study is to build theory and explicate rich causal accounts, throughanalytical induction, of given social outcomes (Robinson 1951; McKeown 2004).
This is especially important where an analytical problem needs eliciting and whencausal processes are unclear (Collier et al. 2004). Though generalisation might be
impossible from a statistical viewpoint, case studies can be compared and contributeto the understanding of complex phenomena in other contexts. ‘Case studies are often
undertaken because the researcher expects that the clarification of causal mechanisms
in one case will have implications for understanding causal mechanisms in othercases’ (McKeown 2004, p. 163).
Thus, in my case, in the beginning, based on my knowledge and experience,
Georgia appeared to be a good ‘revelatory’ case (Yin 2002) for understanding thewider processes of the so-called ‘thieves’ world’ in the post-Soviet space, itself asubset of larger categories such as ‘organised crime’ and ‘trust network’. Following
the pilot trip it was clear that the potential data to be collected precluded
straightforward quantitative research design and time constraints meant that acomparative case study would be beyond the scope of the PhD. The within-case(Collier et al. 2004) or, singular case, approach makes generalising from Georgia toother countries that deal with thieves-in-law, or trust networks generally, difficult. In
adopting the case study approach, a goal for the research then became to produce a50

rich, analytic account that might produce further hypotheses and add to existing
theory.

3.2 Operationalisation of Concepts

Before departing to the field for a second time I operationalised researchconcepts, elucidated variables to be studied, identified units of analysis, data sources
and collection techniques, creating participant information forms and interview
guides. This was a difficult process of working and re-working. The research design
was adjusted and reformulated at different times, including in the field, in an ‘iterated
dialogue’ with theory and data (McKeown 2004). The main approach adopted was an‘embedded case study design’ (Yin 2002) with the trust network of the kanonieri
qurdebi of Georgia as the main case and individual qurdebi taken as cases within thatcase.
The study was narrowed down to look mainly at the 1990s to the present day
and, where relevant, the immediately preceding period of the late 1980s. Furthermore,
I limited the research sites to two – Tbilisi and Kutaisi and the environs of these two
towns. These sites should not be seen as case studies in their own right; they merely
presented the most viable and data-rich locations for collecting the data needed. Bothtowns produced disproportionate numbers of qurdebi (AOCU-T 2008; see chapter 8)along with Sukhumi in Abkhazia, which unfortunately was not accessible as a
research site due to the separatist conflicts. Tbilisi, a city of 1.2 million, is Georgia’s
capital and access to the necessary experts, documentary sources, and archives could
be found easier there. Kutaisi, a town of roughly 150,000, is the administrative centreof the region of Imereti, an area that produced a third of all of Georgia’s present day
51

qurdebi. My initial research trip had shown that data was also accessible there. Thus,
the logic was that whatever processes were occurring or had occurred in the thieves’world in Georgia that may help answer the research question would be mostobservable and prominent in these two research sites.
Relative to other aspects of the research, the research question remained
consistent from the time of the pilot field trip in 2008:‘How do we account for the low levels of resilience to state attack of those criminal
actors carrying the status marker kanonieri qurdi in Georgia since 2005?’

In the language of variables, the outcome or dependent variable is the level ofresilience of the kanonieri qurdebi once the anti-mafia policy was adopted by the
Georgian government. Resilience was operationalised in terms of sustenance, external
relations, boundaries, and internal relations. These were broken down into further
components which vary over time (see Table 2.1, chapter 2). For example, theconcept of internal relations encompasses the following processes: centralisation,
faction formation, shared backgrounds amongst members, and a reliance oncommitment rather than coercion or capital to incentivise members. Identifying
independent variables and causal mechanisms that would explain changes in theelements of the dependent variable was an ongoing process throughout the research.
Hypotheses were put forward, dismissed or kept as data was collected and analysed.
The study focuses in on the following causal factors that emerged in the data:

1) Varying agency costs
2) Varying opportunity costs523) Changes in structure of economy4) Competition in the environment5) Size of the trust network
6) State policies towards crime and organised crime

As mentioned (chapter 2), it is possible to work out hypothetical relationships
between the variables, however, I did not set them out as clear propositions to betested for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the number of variables here and their potential
overlap and interaction makes for a large number of potential hypothetical relations.
Secondly, due to the qualitative nature of the case study approach a more appropriate
goal than hypothesis testing is to draw out the relationships between the variables, thenature and size of such relationships and the causal mechanisms underlying any
effects being made. While some ideas about the general direction and nature of therelationships between the variables will be tentatively gleaned, the research is also
intended to suggest new hypotheses.
As the theory developed over time, the focal points of the research changed
and the data sources that would allow the necessary observations were revised. I
followed King et al’s (1994) advice and listed the types of observable implications
from theory that should be expected during the fieldwork. For example, changes inboundaries was conceptualised as raising or lowering barriers to entry in recruitment
processes, to know about such processes would require observations about individual
characteristics of those becoming qurdebi over time. This could be done throughaccess to police data, and this was deemed accessible as I had managed to negotiate
access to such data during the first research trip. These observations might also be53

gleaned through analysis of witness statements in court cases, this was pursued as a
research strategy but proved to turn up very few observations.

3.3 Issues of Validity

In quantitative studies it would not be enough to simply operationalise theconcepts contained in the dependent and independent variables, it is also necessary tostate how to measure the concepts and what indicators might do this. In qualitative
case studies this is not easily done. Instead of producing clear measurement indicators
the process of operationalising concepts in qualitative research is about providing amore ‘sensitive homing device that sorts out salient elements and targets in on them.’(Lincoln & Guba 1985, p. 224; Blaikie 2000, p. 38) Nevertheless, it is worthwhile forcase study researchers to think through the validity of their definitions and use ofconcepts, testing their research design for validity and reliability (Adcock & Collier
2001; Yin, 2002; Hagan 2003 pp 264-265). Yin (2002) identifies four areas that casestudy researchers need to address: construct validity, internal validity, external
validity and reliability.
Construct validity demands that the theoretical definitions adopted fit theactual phenomenon being researched. As described above, the concepts I employ are
all broken down into further parts that are assumed to be manifested and observable
empirically. One technique to ensure construct validity is to employ what Hagan(2003 p. 267) calls convergent-divergent validity tests whereby different data andtechniques measuring the same concept converge on the same result, and the same
technique on different concepts diverges in results. In using multiple sources, known
as triangulation, it can be seen that we are truly testing what we want to test. In this54

study, I collected data from multiple sources in order to generate more observations
and find stronger relationships.
Internal validity requires that correct causal inferences are made. Alternative
explanations should be considered, intervening variables brought in, counterfactuals
constructed where possible. There needs to be a clear logic linking the data topropositions. In qualitative case study research there is no probability or p score to
speak of, therefore there needs to be some criteria for judging the causal effect of a
relationship and identifying the appropriate mechanism (Yin 2002). King et al. (1994)
argue that it is better to have robust descriptive inference than weak causal inference.
In case studies, collecting data from a range of sources can increase the confidencewith which inferences about causation are made. In case studies, the key to making
inferences lies in analytical (as opposed to enumerative) induction. This requires
specifying ‘the necessary connections among a set of theoretically significant
elements manifested…in the data’ (Mitchell 2000, p. 178). Thus, case study
researchers suggest that while they cannot produce p scores of the confidence on
which their conclusions are based, analytical induction can produce strong logical,
rather than statistical, inferences to causal processes and general theory based on indepth study of the case and an ‘unassailable’ reading of the processes observed (Ibid;
Robinson 1951). As Mitchell (2000, p. 177) points out, however strong therelationship between two variables, establishing causation requires the extra step ofidentifying some unobserved mechanism. Therefore, case studies should attempt togenerate as many observations as possible and employ well-developed theory to infer
relationships between relevant phenomena, judge explanations for these relationships,
and identify the operation of general principles.

55External validity refers to the possibility of generalisation. Using case studies
and qualitative research makes generalization to a wider population very difficult.
Within-case studies that involve no comparison or variance on the dependent variable
can only show necessary but not sufficient conditions and do not allow for goodpredictions to be made. However, by making the research design and analysis tightthe case study can be tentatively generalised (Ibid. p. 177) though, as Cronbach (1975in Lincoln & Guba 2005, p. 39) puts it, ‘when we give proper weight to local
conditions, generalisation is a working hypothesis, not a conclusion.’ The researchhere then produces work that might contribute to other studies and allow comparisonswith the necessary qualifications and statement of its limits as a single-case study. It
can be placed within wider studies of organised crime and trust networks which can
include a wide variety of phenomena from terrorist cells to utopian communities.
Tentative comparisons might be made between the Georgian case and other postSoviet cases. In carrying the research out in a clear and open way it may be replicatedif generalization to a wider population is desired.
Reliability requires documenting all procedures during the research. Given thesame conditions, the same answers should be found if these procedures are followed(Hagan 2003, p. 269). Towards this end I kept a research diary. I kept records ofinformal conversations and interviews as well as a separate database developed fromdocumentary data collected. Ethical requirements dictate that these are kept safe and I
am the only person with access to them. It is possible in the future, with the right
permission, that all documentation, suitably anonymised, will be accessible if sowished.

56

3.4 Data Sources and Data Collection

The considerations of the correct approach, issues of validity, and time andplace constraints were not taken in complete isolation of the data. As mentioned I
conducted an initial trip that enabled a great deal of progress in designing further
work in the field. I continued to collect data in the shape of secondary sources andcorrespondence with respondents outside of the field. The types of data influenced theresearch question and the approach to the research. I considered the following sources
for data as realistic: expert interviews, police data, archival documents, court data,
journalistic accounts, surveys, and an ethnography in a specific location within
Kutaisi. However, within the context of the second research trip in 2009 the latter two
research strategies would have been time consuming and I focussed my time on thefirst four sources. Decisions about narrowing and adapting the research designnecessarily occurred in the field as, while some possibilities were cut off, others
presented themselves. Below I go into depth about the two main sources of data:expert interviews and documentary sources.

3.4.1 Expert Interviews

In total 44 interviews were carried out with key respondents. The complete
list, anonymised and with dates, is given in the bibliography. It included a range of
people from unemployed citizens with connections to criminal authorities, to lawyers,
to the former President, to criminal investigators and NGO directors. Naturally, it57

would have been optimal to seek out interviews with Georgian qurdebi themselves
either in prison or abroad. However, examiners advised me against this during thequalifying test stage of the PhD. Such a strategy would have created unnecessaryrisks. Furthermore, negotiating access to the highest security prison in Georgia would
have been near impossible. Thus, I pursued less direct strategies.
As well as identifying and deliberately selecting some of the respondents
myself, I also employed the sampling technique called ‘snowballing’ in the literature(Bachman & Schutt 2007) where this means taking direction from one interviewee to
identify other potential respondents. This technique can point down dead ends andlead to privileging the views of a group of people who all share the same social field
as each other. This problem, however, can be avoided to some extent by beginning the‘snowball’ from a variety of unrelated sources. Furthermore, snowballing does not
generate representative samples in any sense. It is difficult to know when your sample
is big enough. As regards this, I used the saturation principle whereby as you findinterviews with a certain group tend to stop generating new insights then a saturation
point in the data is assumed.
Interviews were very rarely set up through cold calling. Using the snowball
method usually meant someone else was able to make initial contact for me, to which
I would then follow up through a telephone call in which a time and place werearranged to meet. Georgia is small and the people very sociable, people form tightnetworks and I often felt the research was carried along on such networking. Certain
key informants proved important gatekeepers to such networks. I was therefore
careful to cultivate good relations with such people as ‘experienced researchers
uniformly emphasise the need to establish solid informal relationships withinformants’ (Barrett & Cason 1997, p. 91). This was made easier by the ubiquity of58alcohol in most social occasions in Georgia. Many Georgians make their own wineand spirits, and often interviews could start and end with drinks. There were a few
occasions where interviews were not granted until I had imbibed copious amounts ofwine and engaged in the traditional Georgian art of toast making (Chetwin 2001).
Adopting the openness of the local people, going along with sometimes exhausting
drinking practices and unquestioningly accepting hospitality, established trust. I was
keen to reciprocate this warmth by offering small gifts, Oxford pen holders, tie clips,
a bottle of whiskey and the like, to some respondents. However, I was aware of thedangers of over-familiarity and the need to not put myself in harm’s way at any time.
Personal connections and genuine friendly relations at times bore a lot of fruit.
I was fortunate that on the basis of one interview I was able to ‘piggy back’ on theactivities of the NGO Penal Reform International with whom I had developed good
contacts. I accompanied their researchers on visits to four different prisons. This gaveme an excellent insight into the condition of Georgian prisons and the difficulties ofGeorgian prisoners as well as the type of personnel running the prison. I was able toput questions to the prison governors, tour the prisons and, unfortunately rather
limitedly, talk to the prisoners.
Interviews were mainly carried out in Russian or, with the younger
generations, English. I have been learning Georgian for some time, however, thiscomplex language related to no other except some dialects and tribal languages inside
Georgia, proved very challenging to master without an intensive period in thelanguage laboratory. Georgian was therefore used for meeting and greeting, key
phrases memorised and used during toasts, and this in itself was often greatly
appreciated. Although I would dearly have liked to have perfected Georgian I
followed Devereux’s (1993, in Barrett & Cason 1997, p. 18) advise: ‘learning the59language is a “data collection exercise” in its own right, and the investment ofvaluable time and intellectual energy in acquiring this knowledge should be assessedalongside the imperative to collect other types of data.’ Given that most Georgians arefluent in Russian and many young people, who have taken to the heights ofgovernment as a deliberate policy of the Saakashvili administration, are learning
English, I felt my time was better invested in other areas than language study. In only
one interview, following the short war of August 2008 between Russia and Georgia,
did the respondent strictly refuse to use his Russian on political grounds. On thatoccasion we were able to find a translator.
The interviews followed a semi-structured format. I made up differinginterview guides to cover the type of questions I wanted to ask those working in law
enforcement and non-governmental sectors. The questions asked were designed to be
open-ended and elicit wide responses. Interviews could last as little as 30 minutes
going on to 3 hours in one case. Many interviews were not tape-recorded. In manycases, after witnessing highly uncomfortable reactions, it was not even suggested.
While this might negatively affect the accuracy of the record of what was said there is
no doubt it increased the veracity and breadth of what was talked about during theinterviews (Serio 2008, p. 51). Instead, in-depth notes during the interview were taken
in a notepad and then written up on a laptop directly afterwards. In some cases,
further meetings were made, and follow-up questions asked in order to clarify certain
issues or develop new points that were emerging with the data.
The interviews were directed at gaining deeper knowledge of the processes
that the research question touched on and gleaning data that could provide or remove
support for certain interpretations and hypotheses that were emerging simultaneously
from other sources. For example, police respondents were helpful in providing

60

examples of conflict amongst the qurdebi over the change in lifestyle and movementaway from the thieves’ code of honour, whereas academics and school workers could
give their perceptions on support amongst young people for the qurdebi and what
reasons might be for changes in this. These views were supplemented by further
interviews and other data sources. Many more informal conversations took place that
increased my understanding though went unrecorded except as notes in the researchdiary.

3.4.2 Secondary Data Analysis‘Secondary data analysis’ is a term used by Bachman and Schutt to refer to a
specific research strategy (Bachmann & Schutt 2007, p. 257) which Hagan (2003, p.
224) also refers to as ‘unobtrusive methods’. It involves the collection of documentary
data originally compiled for different purposes. Data can be collected from bothprimary and secondary sources. This became a big part of my research strategy.
Particularly I sought out four areas: police sources, court data, archival documents
and official publications.
Police sources were particularly useful and so I spent time developing contacts
and searching out such information. I knew it was accessible as I had obtained someof this data from police sources in Kutaisi on my pilot research trip, in the form ofdetailed information on 79 qurdebi from the Imereti region. Lists of names andnicknames of thieves-in-law had been published before in Russia in books(Podlesskikh & Tereshonok 1995), however, obtaining this information directly fromthe police gave much more detailed and relevant data. On the second research trip, I
made multiple trips to the Special Operations Department in Tbilisi and eventually61

negotiated access to over 400 files. These were released on trust that the data would
be used modestly, ethically and anonymised.
Police files have been held on those identified as qurdebi since at least the
1980s as the police data and archival sources showed. Police operatives working in
local precincts collected information on criminal activities in their regions includingnames and details of people who had been ‘baptised’ or ‘crowned’ as qurdebi as well
as locations and names of people who engaged in ‘discussing the thieves’
understandings’ or dispute resolution. The data from Kutaisi matched the Tbilisi files
though the local files contained more information than the centrally held ones. I used
only those files that referred to persons who had the qurdi title. All the files werecompiled or updated in 2004, thus allowing a snapshot of the qurdebi directly before
they were targeted by the state. I discuss this further when I talk later about data
analysis.
On top of the police files I targeted the courts as a good source of data. My
hunch was that, as had happened in Italy and America, with new laws permitting pleabargaining and harsh sentences for those who were known qurdebi or their associates,
some of the cases that involved the new articles of the criminal code that targeted thequrdebi might utilise state’s witnesses.
First though, I had to negotiate access to Tbilisi’s main city court. This was infact very difficult: court records were not considered public record and were certainly
not for photocopy or translation. Good personal relations in the Prosecutor’s Officehelped me and some goodwill on the court’s part let me look at certain cases and eventake some photocopies. Which cases exactly had to be specified in advance and it was
not easy to know directly when and who had been tried under the new laws,
specifically article 223/1 and 223/2 – membership of the thieves’ world and holding62

the title kanonieri qurdi respectively. I eventually pieced together a list of such cases
from the last three years. However, once I accessed the court files of these cases there
were very few state witnesses and, generally, very little eye-witness evidence appears
to be used in organised crime cases in Georgia. Mostly wire-tap evidence and police
testimony is utilised in court. I later found out that Georgia has no witness protection
programme and this might be considered a primary factor for the lack of witness
statements along with a deep mistrust of the still politically dependent courts. The
data I gained from court cases therefore proved to be less useful than hoped. It did
however provide some interesting details of activities of some of the qurdebi which
was useful for supplementing interview data with.
Thirdly, I spent whatever extra time I had looking in archives. I believed thiswas a useful thing to do for three reasons: firstly, I thought historical knowledge
based on primary sources would help give context to the study; secondly, theinterviews often referred back to anti-qurdebi policies pursued in the 1980s and theinfluence of the qurdebi at that time; thirdly, I was made aware by other researchersthat the Georgian archives from the communist time were open and relatively
welcoming compared to other post-Soviet states. I identified the major archives thatmight hold data on the topic all of which proved to be in various states of repair: thepre-revolutionary (1921) archive (undergoing much needed refurbishment), the KGB
archive (un-catalogued and much of it destroyed by fire), the MIA archive (uncatalogued and unkempt), and the President’s Archive (the archive of the Communist
Party of Georgia – well organised and helpful). The KGB archive collected
information mainly on political dissidents, and was therefore discounted, I could only
access the MIA archive by stating in advance exactly which documents I wanted to
see which I could only do for a few directives I had prior knowledge of. The

63

President’s Archive had a contents guide and allowed photography of individual
pages. This permitted me to look through relevant documents and record the contents
of various files relatively quickly to be analysed later. The archival documents turned
up some interesting data that I was able to use particularly concerning relations
between the Soviet police and the qurdebi and the activities of the latter in the Soviet
second economy.
Fourthly, I collected data from a range of other sources, these including
official publications of the Prosecutor’s Office, the Georgian Office for Statistics, theOmbudsman, NGOs such as Penal Reform International, Transparency International,
Norwegian Mission of Rule of Law Advisers to Georgia (NORLAG), theInternational Republican Institute, and the Georgian Young Lawyers Association(GYLA). The Transnational Crime and Corruption Centre (TraCCC) in Tbilisi
collects newspaper articles on various topics including the qurdebi in Russian andGeorgian languages. I was generously allowed to photocopy many of these. The
Caucasus Research and Resource Center (CRRC) also does a tremendous job incompiling household surveys across the South Caucasus. By becoming a member
online CRRC’s large databases from 2004 onwards are downloadable and can be usedin the SPSS statistical programme. The surveys contain a wealth of information on
everything from attitudes to state institutions, to fear of crime, to earnings.
Lastly, I used certain internet resources that collect and maintain databases ofpress reports from Eastern Europe. The Eastview database was an important resourcein this regard and can be accessed from Oxford. The pay-per-view Russian website
primecrime.ru also proved to be a good source of up to date information. This website
provides a news service which primarily reports on any events related to thieves-inlaw across the post-Soviet space and maintains an archive of reports, lists of deaths

64and trials, photographs and videos. These extra ‘unobtrusive methods’ supplemented
the more direct research sources.

3.5 Data Analysis

The process of data analysis involves looking at the raw data and trying to
make sense of it, linking together significant elements and looking for relationships
between phenomena. In this stage a preliminary outline of an answer to the researchquestion begins to emerge. The different sources of data required a variety oftechniques for data analysis. I will take each one in turn.
I transcribed the interviews and used the qualitative data analysis program
NVIVO 8 to organise and code the data. The coding of the interviews was mainly
descriptive. The fact that the interviews had been semi-structured aided this process.
The coding system followed a ‘chunking’ strategy, (Miles & Huberman 1994, p. 52)
categorising the interview data along the conceptualisations of the variables,
extracting and categorising, for example, data on the supply of human resources(recruitment) and boundary maintenance and then analysing the relationship between
these. The approach then to coding was top-down, seeking to support or rejectpreconceived, theoretical ideas about relationships between variables, as opposed todeveloping inferential and explanatory codes where the theory emerges from thecoding (Ibid.) Records of informal conversations and observations from the field werealso referred to in this qualitative data analysis process in the form of notes, but theserecords were not formally included in the coding scheme.
The archival material was sifted through and relevant and revealing
information relating to specific questions, particularly on resources and sustenance65

and external relations, was incorporated into the thesis. A similar process was carriedout regarding reports of NGOs and various press news databases.
While this was quite an exhausting process, the most extensive and timeconsuming task involved pulling together the police files from Kutaisi, Tbilisi, details
from court cases, previous published lists of thieves-in-law, and news reports to create
a database with as much detail as possible of all the known kanonieri qurdebi from
Georgia. Evidently, all these sources did not present data in an amenable way forcomparisons, data had to be extracted and compiled manually. In essence, the casestudy of the Georgian qurdebi took on an ‘embedded’ (Yin 2002) design: individual
qurdebi made up a further unit of analysis and were taken as cases. For eachindividual case various variables from the data sources were attributed. These
included: date of birth; nickname; place of birth; registered residence; current
location; education level; year ‘baptised’; ‘baptised’ by who; number, type and placeof convictions; known activities; and close working contacts. Selecting only thosecases with sufficient data to be worth including, I had 278 cases to work with.
Naturally, there was often data missing for certain cases on certain variables thus notalways making tests between variables easy. Nevertheless, this sample of Georgian
qurdebi was representative in the sense of covering 80% (N=349) of those known
Georgians with the criminal title kanonieri qurdi. By statistical standards however, it
is a small number for running robust tests.
The data was originally compiled in Excel and then transferred into SPSS forthe purpose of testing certain ideas. Most fundamentally, the data was used to look forindicators of change over time. This was done by splitting the cases into cohorts basedon the age individuals were baptised as kanonieri qurdebi. The cut off points werebased on theoretical considerations of when changes in socio-economic and political66

conditions might have brought about transformations and produce distinctions acrossgroups of qurdebi. Individuals were placed in cohorts based on when a qurdi was‘baptised’ or ‘crowned’ and already had experience of the thieves’ world. This wasestimated at 24 years old. For the purposes of this analysis it is an age around which
we may reasonably assume (based on the data available) that the cases were being‘baptised’ or were already kai bichebi (goodfellas living according to the thieves’
understandings) and living the thievish life.
The first cohort were ‘baptised’ as qurdebi in the post-Stalin period (19531971) in Georgia when cronyism and corruption had become deeply embedded. The
second cohort takes in the period 1972-1981; this is the bulk of Shevardnadze’s timeas First Secretary (1972-1985) during his anti-corruption drive and ‘liberal’ economic
policies such as the Abasha Experiment in 1973 that allowed private ownership andtrade on small landholdings long before perestroika in 1985. The third cohort takes in
the period 1982-1991. This extends from the famous 1982 skhodka in Tbilisi, in
which Jaba Ioseliani reoriented qurdebi activities more towards business, throughGorbachev’s perestroika and the liberalisation of the Soviet economy right up to thecollapse of the Union and the independence of Georgia declared in April 1991. The
fourth cohort were all ‘baptised’ from 1992 onward. This cohort became qurdebi
during an extreme transition period: Georgia’s wars with Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
the move to a full capitalist economy during which GDP massively dropped, andwidespread illegality and state collapse. It goes up to Shevardnadze’s stabilisation of
the situation at the end of the 1990s and the eventual Rose Revolution in 2003.
Cohort groups were then compared on a number or indicators such as criminal
careers, movement and location, and presence of nicknames. Non-parametric groupcomparison was also made across space to uncover whether some processes were67

confined to certain locales. A spatial analysis of the cases suggested certain dynamics
and distinctions between groups from different areas. The Kutaisi files provided
enough data on connections between actors to perform a very basic social network
analysis using the UCINET 6 software (see chapter 8). This identified, inter alia,
levels of centralisation and factions of actors.
The results of the secondary data analysis and interview coding can be foundin the following chapters. I now turn to the limits of the research design and data.

3.6 Limitations

It is important to limit the claims that can be made for a within-case study that
relies on certain types of data sources and there were some clear structural limitations
to my research design. I identify potential pitfalls in the data but argue that thesources used, when questioned, triangulated, and supplemented with other data can betreated as valid.
Firstly, it is clear that the interviews privilege the perspective of law
enforcement to a greater degree than any other single perspective. This was partly aproblem of the snowballing technique. Police tend to know each other well and one
respondent easily becomes a gatekeeper to another. It was also partly a problem
induced from the nature of the research question. Simply, it was harder to find regular
citizens to go on record and talk about their experiences than those in law
enforcement. People who had in-depth knowledge, such as the ex-wife of a qurdi,
talked off the record and could not be recorded as an official interview or used in the
study.

68

The weight given to the law enforcement perspective stems to some degreefrom the political situation in Georgia. The law enforcement bodies are undergoing aresurgence: new personnel walk the corridors of new buildings in new uniforms, somehave just returned from educational trips to the UK or the US. There is a definite
confidence present. Furthermore, the young administrators in the Ministry of theInterior or the Prosecutor’s Office want to talk about their achievements. Police canoften give highly detailed and convincing accounts of the activities and structure of
the criminal world. However, the data is coloured by the fact that the source comesfrom a specific life and work trajectory. Meanwhile, ordinary citizens are scared by
the growing prevalence and ease of setting up wiretaps and worried that the newlegislation on organised crime can be used against anyone who mentions the qurdebi
positively. However, defence lawyers and NGO workers often have the confidence togive the alternative view and these networks were also tapped into for the research.
I partly got around these issues by drawing all respondents into talking about
their own life experiences outside their official capacity. Police respondents, it should
be remembered, are also normal members of society. In Georgia, many have not beenin the job long and have common experiences of the effects of organised crime on an
every day basis. Indeed, some confided their own attraction to the criminal world
before they became police. A similar approach was used in interviews with people inother official positions whether as civil servants, headmasters or NGO workers. In
every case, I was interested in personal experience as well as institutional positions on
policy and opinions on legal issues.
Secondly, the data collected from the police and from the courts can be
criticised as not objective fact. Including such sources is not without controversy. As
Rawlinson (2008, p. 351) says, ‘while law enforcement agencies can be useful69sources (assuming access is granted) their data have utilitarian functions that is toinvestigate and prosecute those suspected of organised criminal activities, thus
providing at best only a partial view of organised crime’. Furthermore, Serio gives
excellent examples from Russia of how such data sources can be seriously
misleading. Why, he asks (2008, p. 57), when nobody in the West trusted Soviet
sources would anyone start to believe Russian police sources? He gives real examples
of how flimsy journalistic reports inform police reports which in turn become‘sources’ to be used by journalistic reports down the line (Ibid, chap. 3).
These worries are well founded, however, they only apply in cases where it is
not clear where the information has come from, or with clearly sensationalised
accounts of organised crime. It also depends on the type of analysis you wish to
conduct with the information. I was interested in documents that contained mundane
facts about individual qurdebi, such as nicknames, place and date of birth, numbers ofconvictions and movements. Thus, while I concede that police and court data isunlikely to be value free, the types of aspects in the data that I picked up on would notnecessarily be affected by such biases. Basic facts as to dates of birth, nicknames oryear ‘baptised’ as a qurdi cannot be distorted easily in anyone’s interest. The files do
not contain any material that would be potentially incriminating. Of necessity all
sources were treated sceptically and evaluated for their validity and utility towards the
specific research question being pursued.14

14

Other information was not so useful to this end. For example, in a meeting with a barrister I was,rather generously, given a thick tome of documents in Georgian and Spanish. ‘There’s your thesis,right there,’ I was told. It contained information produced in court about a far-reaching police operationby the Spanish police in 2005 involving a widescale money-laundering scam by some famous Georgian
qurdebi that involved companies with bank accounts from Russia to Romania to Spain. While thisinformation could be, at some time in the future, very useful, it was limited in answering the researchquestions I had set.

70

Similar concerns exist over the use of court cases. These data are pieces ofevidence used to convict people, and, in a country such as Georgia with a politicallydependent judiciary, this evidence and the charges involved could be disputed. In
recognition of this problem, in the small number of cases I looked at I tried to discusselements with the lawyers involved. One case for example involved a supposed
kanonieri qurdi, however the confusion in the trial over his treatment by the judicial
system led me to discount this case as evidence of anything. Thankfully, Georgia has
had a very active, independent and conscientious Ombudsman in the most recent
period to highlight such cases. Court sources therefore need to be judged on a caseby-case basis.
Archival sources should also be treated with care. In the case of Georgia, I
was inclined to trust the sources I looked at. These were mainly documents of theCentral Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. These were all labelled‘secret’ and not for public consumption. Some were directives highlighting problem
areas to be dealt with by the various local soviets and officials. At the very least these
documents show what the Party was interested in policy-wise. I also believe thedocuments represent accurate reflections of the problems facing the regime that it
could not outwardly acknowledge. The Georgian files are full of documents on illegal
second economy activity for example, which was indeed a very real problem by the
1980s.
It is important to ask then generally why a given document was produced andfor whose benefit. As a matter of good procedure, this was done with NGO
publications and news reports as well. News reports that contained substantive facts
concerning a trial or conflict were favoured over opinion pieces and comment that canoften appear about the thieves-in-law in the post-Soviet space.

71

3.7 Ethics

In carrying out a study into a sensitive topic ethical considerations were very
important. Oxford University’s ethical board are very stringent and it helped to go
through the rounds of ethical clearance needed before embarking on the fieldwork.
The main elements of this were ensuring that informed consent was given and that
respondents were completely aware of what they were doing in giving an interview orgiving up informational sources. I used participant information sheets written in
Georgian that contained information about myself, the university, and the research
project. I framed my research in the wider issue of the new criminal legislation onorganised crime, and the place of the qurdebi as central to this. This presentation of
the research was fundamentally aimed at making the research topical and interestingfor the respondent. From there, often the respondent would touch upon the topic of
the qurdebi unprompted. The information sheet stated that they could break off theinterview at any time and gave them contact details in case any complaint arose. It
also gives the right for the participant to request a copy of the thesis where their views
have been represented and raise concerns if there are any. Unfortunately, on the basisof advise from examiners, I cannot give up too much editorial control on this issue
and I have maintained ultimate control of what is included in the study. Interestingly,
I found that the participant information form, with its assurances, phone numbers,
email addresses, and visible Oxford University symbols put respondents at ease andprobably inflated their opinion of my importance as well as providing the ethicallynecessary information.

72

As part of a further ethical procedure, I made up consent forms which
involved ticking boxes that the respondent was aware of what they were participatingin. This form required a signature. As with the tape recorder, I found that asking
people from a former Soviet state to sign a formal looking piece of paper given tothem by a foreigner asking about government legal reforms and organised crime did
not prompt a good response. Thus, I did not use the content forms. Instead, I sent theparticipant information forms by email or through an intermediary prior to meeting or
gave the respondent plenty of time to read this form at the beginning of the interview.
I then asked for verbal consent that they understood the form and were happy toproceed. When institutions such as the court, the police or the archives gave up
documentation, this was also done with verbal consent and in the case of the courts aform signed the information over to me.
Once the data was collected, I honoured the agreements I had made withrespondents and those who gave up data. All data was stored safely on password
protected computers and files. Physical documentation was stored in locked cabinetsthat could only be accessed by the researcher. All respondents were anonymised.
Names were removed from data in creating the database. Minimal information is
given about actual persons making identification impossible. There are those who,
through their widespread renown, might be identified in the data but this is due toinformation that is already freely available in the public domain and anonymisation
would make little sense as the individual in question is recognisable in any case. Thisis the case in only a few places.

733.8 Reflections
While the preceding sections might give the impression that the data collected
and access granted was a smooth and inevitable process, reflecting on the researchonce out of the field it was clear to me the role of contingent factors and often luck infinding materials on what was essentially an underground phenomenon. In the field, I
found myself submerged in a network of relations, pursuing potential leads andmaking split decisions about ethics, and where best to concentrate time and energy.
To some degree I became oblivious to the multiple chance occurrences, happy
coincidences, as well as the dead ends turned down and back tracking done. This all
merged into what might be called ‘the research experience.’ Furthermore, adapting
behaviour to the local culture becomes normal after awhile. However, it is clear thatthe end results are a product of all the chance opportunities as well as the dead ends,
the networking, and behavioural adaptations that facilitated trust. Two anecdotes fromthe field will serve to illustrate this. I hope to demonstrate here the role of chance,
instantaneous decision-making, and behavioural adaptation at crucial moments of the
fieldwork that had massive repercussions for the type of work that was eventually
produced.
Firstly, during the pilot fieldtrip in 2008 I had planned to visit Kutaisi to makeinitial contacts. However, having never been to this town before, in Tbilisi I becameacquainted with a retired police major from Kutaisi who gave me a number to callonce I arrived there, which after a long, hot minibus ride, I did. I was met by a burly
retired police officer. Still thinking in terms of sociological research methods, I was
hoping to sit down with him, present my participant information forms and take aninterview. Instead, he drove me to a hotel on the edge of town. I assumed he had

74perceived the need for me to have a shower and change clothes after the trip. Instead
however, we entered through the back of the hotel straight into a room with 25 large,
local men sat round a long table, midway through a Georgian supra (feast). As theroom fell silent, I was handed a half pint of wine (quite a normal quantity in Georgia),
introduced to a man whose birthday it apparently was and asked to toast him. While
everyone sat quietly I stood with this one man, stumbled through a variety of heartfelt
wishes that I had learnt at previous supras and downed the glass. This appeared to putme onside with the hosts.
We drank for around 6 hours. My host then, clearly drunk, drove me aroundtown showing me some of the town’s sights. Again, I couldn’t find the courage todecline any of what was happening. Early the next morning and feeling worse forwear, my host burst into my room, told me to get up and off we went for beers
ostensibly to cure aching heads. Feeling somewhat trammelled, I grew increasingly
anxious that I wouldn’t manage to turn the trip towards the purpose of the research,
and we only briefly discussed what I was interested in. By lunchtime, we were sitting
in a café drinking more beer. My host invited another police officer to join who
brought his teenage son to meet me who, despite claims to the contrary, spoke very
limited English. After more socialising at the table, my host brought the topic sharply
round to my theme. Telling me he could help, and nodding in the direction of hiscolleague, he produced a number of compact disks, which he told me I could use but
to return them to him. I agreed but had no idea what was on the disks and went backto Tbilisi feeling like the trip to Kutaisi had achieved very little but a sore bladder.
However, I soon realised that he had given me detailed operational police data on
qurdebi from Imereti. These files proved to be extremely useful.

75

Looking back, I believe it was not just hospitality that had led to such an
intense and exhausting couple of days. I genuinely think that the two days had been atrust building exercise for the former police officer who naturally was not sure whatsome young foreigner wanted turning up in the thieves’ capital of Georgia asking
questions about organised crime. Those couple of days were a turning point though, I
realised that the right approach to people could garner access to unique data sources
and my experience in Kutaisi emboldened me to attempt a similar feat in Tbilisi withdata gate-keepers in the police there, which eventually paid off. Without those days in
Kutaisi I might never have even pursued police files as a data source, and without thewillingness to carry along with events in the hope that something eventually would
come out of it, I might genuinely have left Kutaisi with nothing on my first trip. This
example then serves to illustrate just how contingent things can be in the field andhow methodology and findings can be shaped by personal ties, openness to chance,and quick social learning on the spot.
The second example also comes from Kutaisi, this time on the second trip in2009 when I was staying there for a much longer period with a local family. I was
struggling at the time to make headway in the town. As a small and tight-knit
environment, I found people knew before I met them who I was and what I wasinterested in and given the reputation of the town, people were often very cagey, or insome cases slightly mocking – jokingly introducing themselves with a thievishnickname for example. I was also struggling with the level of alcoholism amongst the
locals. As in the example above, I knew that getting drunk with someone could help
the research process, but this strategy is, of course, rather hit and miss. However, after
one evening where I had got myself into a particularly heavy drinking session on a
farm on the edge of town, I got a call from a man who claimed to be the nephew of76

the one qurdi left in freedom in Kutaisi, an old, disabled man who had the nickname‘Eyes’ and offered a meeting. I knew of this qurdi from the police files and thecaller’s story was substantiated by my landlord. I was faced with a choice therefore
whether to pursue this further. An interview with an actual qurdi in principle could be
useful and an excellent source of data. However, I also had to consider the effect on
this old man and the possible consequences of meeting with him – in such a small
town would it draw unwanted attention to the respondent or to me? Could I trust thecaller, who I had never met? And, if so, how much trust-building work (drinking)would I be expected to do? Again, I took a snap ethical decision that I should leavethis line of inquiry.
This is an example of the types of decisions that I took regularly in the field
which crucially shaped the thesis. There were times when data collection was simply
not the sole purpose of activity and other considerations took precedent. Balancing
priorities, always bearing ethical commitments in mind and my own stamina to pursue
certain sources shaped what was collected and what went into this work.
I hope these examples have served to illustrate the often haphazard nature of
doing research in a place like Georgia where life itself is incredibly social, lively, andspontaneous,

where

distinctionsofpublic/private,

formal/informal,

personal/impersonal are constructed much differently from western Europe. The final
study here is therefore very much a product shaped then by split decisions, personal
networks, chance meetings, contingent trust, and often the limits of the researcher’s
fatigue.

77

4. The Qurdebi as a Soviet Mafia‘Georgia has a reputation second to none…In form this activity may not differ greatly
from what takes place in other regions, but in Georgia it seems to have been carriedout on an unparalleled scale and with unrivalled scope and daring.’

Gregory Grossman on Soviet Georgia’s second economy, The Second Economy of the
USSR (1977)

In this chapter I focus on the activities of the qurdebi. I attempt to show thatthe qurdebi in their essence form a mafia and are not simply an organised crime group– a distinction that is explained below. Mafias, like other organisations, do not remainunchanged through time pursuing one specific goal within a set structure and culture.
Instead they adapt to survive in competitive environments evolving their activities
within residual structural and ideational frameworks (Gambetta 1993; Leeson &Rogers n.d.). According to Tilly (2006), changes in the availability and sequesteringof resources, and the supply of those resources are vital for the survival of trust
networks. In this chapter I look at what activities the qurdebi were engaged in before
the collapse of the Soviet Union in Georgia. The following chapter then explicates
their activities after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Drawing on archival evidence I argue that the qurdebi were already a fullyfledged mafia before the collapse of the Soviet Union and that therefore the essenceof their activities remained rather constant before and after the collapse. The change
from being a prison-based fraternity to a mafia operating in the second economy

78

outside the prison occurred sometime before the 1970s, but this is unfortunately
outside the scope of the present study. Instead, this chapter discusses the later Soviet
period of the 1970s and 1980s. The chapter argues that the Soviet Union’s policies
had created an illicit form of capitalist activity in the second economy unprotected by
the state due to its illegality.
This will be contrasted with the post-Soviet period in the following chapter(Chapter 5). In the this latter period Georgia moved to a legal, full-blown, capitalist
economy that allowed for property rights which, however, the state was too weak toprotect. Thus, in both time periods a market for private protection developed, thoughfor different structural reasons. The two periods then produced differing levels of
resources and supply sources for the qurdebi to exploit and the later post-Soviet
period simply represented a huge increase in this market.
Here however, I restrict the analysis to the Soviet period. I begin by discussing
the theory of how mafias emerge and what they do, before discussing the Soviet
period. I look at the Georgian second economy and the qurdebi’s activities and roles
in relation to this.

4.1 The Emergence and Essence of Mafias

The qurdebi existed both in the Soviet Union and in the tumultuous conditionsof newly independent Georgia. It is necessary to draw out the similarities in what thequrdebi were doing in these radically different time periods and also the differences. I
utilise theories of organised crime and the mafia here in explaining how the mafia
emerge where conditions of low trust hold. In such conditions a mafia thrives off ademand for protection. The qurdebi are such a mafia. I will show that they are not79

simply involved in organised crime where this term denotes any coordinated activity
between two or more individuals that attempts to monopolise the production anddistribution of a certain commodity in the illegal sector – drugs, prostitution, stolencars, fake documentation, trafficking in humans and so on (Schelling 1984). Instead,as detailed below, the qurdebi arbitrate and enforce decisions, protect and extort fromlegal actors, and act as a vital lubricant for the cogs of organised criminal activity,
lowering transaction costs for the actors involved and enabling trust relationships in anaturally volatile underworld. In short, the Georgian qurdebi are not an ordinaryorganised crime group, the qurdebi are a mafia.
The approach adopted here focuses on transaction cost economics. Two actors
desire to trade with one another but due to asymmetric information are unable toknow what they will gain from the transaction (Akerlof 1970; Williamson 1983;
Gambetta 1993). Under certain conditions it is cheaper to incur the costs of bringing
in a third party to the transaction and ensuring honesty through the potential forpunishment of transgressions rather than not perform the transaction at all. Where thestate is weak or unable to oversee and enforce agreements made, other actors, whomust be able to demonstrate or signal their capacity to carry out punishment of
dishonesty, may enter the transaction. This third party acts in an extra-legal capacity,
and where this takes on an organised form and an attempt is made to monopolise thisservice over a given territory it may be termed an extra-legal organisation. The mafia
is just one amongst many types of extra-legal organisation distinct in form from rebel
groups, paramilitaries, terrorists and such like, as the mafia has no ultimate politicalgoal (Varese 2010).
A Mafioso is in the first place an artist of extortion who acquires capital by
selling protection through violence or the threat of force. So long as there is no80

competition, the protection that the racketeer offers is from the danger that the
racketeer himself represents to the buyer of the protection. It is in the racketeer’s
interest to protect a client from other extortionists that may arrive on the scene, thus
the emphasis then shifts from the business of racketeering and extortion to the generalsale of protection. This particular field of business however has a tendency to movetowards monopoly; being second best in providing protection makes you highly
unattractive to potential buyers, as protection is relative. The product being sold isdependent on the strength of others (Nozick 1974, p. 16). Furthermore, economies ofscale dictate that once an actor has taken on the costs in setting up protection
provision to one person, it is profitable to provide it to many persons. Thus, theconsolidation of a monopoly of force by a handful of groups of violent ‘protectionproducing agencies’ is the most likely outcome as may be seen in the classic case of
the Sicilian Mafia.
The mafia then, is an alternative institutional arrangement to the state for the
lowering of transaction costs as opposed to some sort of symptom of societal
dysfunction. This approach to the mafia, developed mainly from the work of Diego
Gambetta (1993), neatly sidesteps ethnic-cultural arguments that might be invoked to
explain why mafias emerge in some places and not others and does away withhistorically variable arguments as to the ‘criminal’ nature of the mafia. In Georgia, as
elsewhere in the post-Soviet space, more than one mafia emerged, of these thequrdebi network and their criminal groupings constituted but one.
The essence of the qurdebi’s functions is protection. The focus on protection
has been criticised for not taking into account the full range of activities a mafia canbe involved in (Nelken 1995; Paoli 2003). However it is meant here as the essence of
all mafia activities: the multiple tasks the qurdebi perform and take money for are

81derivatives of this protection function. Such tasks include dispute resolution,
deterrence from victimisation and from other extortionists and competition,
enforcement of contracts, and plain extortion. The common thread linking all these
activities in all these sectors is the idea of protection provision. These activities can
exist in many sectors within a capitalist economy, whether licit or illicit. Examples
range from small businesses supplying consumption goods, to bigger enterprises
making production goods, construction industries, transportation, as well as illegal
markets such as drugs, gambling, smuggling and prostitution. As Gambetta (1993)
asserts, the mafia in essence sells guarantees of protection in these areas. Thus aservice such as arbitration or dispute resolution, a service that the qurdebi wereheavily involved in, keeps at essence the idea of protection, for example, protection
against defection on agreements or insurance on the validity of informal contracts.
Whether in dispute resolution, deterrence or other functions the service
provided flows from the fact of having some sort of influence over the actors, what is
usually referred to as a racket. In the post-Soviet space this is aptly captured in themetaphor of the krysha or ‘roof’. ‘Roofing’ involves placing an entity under one’s
protection thus speaking to the idea of providing a broad protection service whichmight have various manifestations. For example, the corruption of the Soviet regime
meant that the krysha could often be a high-ranking official who could protect illegal
enterprises for a cut of the profits (Vaksberg 1991). Criminals typically found a niche
for themselves in this arrangement in providing physical protection. In the criminal
world itself the qurdebi held the top ranking status and so they themselves became theultimate krysha for criminal groups who needed to protect against competitors or
resolve disputes (Humphreys 2002).

82One strength of this emphasis on market services for protection lies in the factthat it can be extrapolated and applied to mafia-like structures in any part of theworld. Thus, Varese (1994) identified the combination of factors accounting for theappearance of a mafia and successfully applied this to show the mechanisms
responsible for the emergence of the mafia in Russia. In Varese’s seven-step model amafia can emerge when:0) a monopoly over property exists;
1) the monopoly is broken up and many private owners come into existence;2) the increase in owners creates an increase in the number of transactions;3) this in turn increases the demand for trust in transactions;4) the state cannot meet this demand;5) a market for private protection substitutes for the state and for actual trust;
6) a supply of potential providers of this protection is present.

Though these factors when brought together do not bring a mafia into being
necessarily, they do ground the possibility for its emergence. Weak statehood and theother conditions stipulated by Varese are necessary but not sufficient for the
emergence of a mafia. Thus, the argument does not rely on functionalist reasoningthat explains the supply of protection simply by the presence of the demand for thisservice. The demand for protection may not be met by anyone. Other micro-levelfactors must be brought in then to explain supply, that is, why exactly actors become
Mafiosi and why specific individuals formed a group to become a mafia in one place
at one time. To be a mafia such groups, according to Gambetta (1993) and Varese(2001), must be autonomous suppliers of protection, they should not be reliant on one

83

client and specialise in this specific service as opposed to being internalised structures
within businesses that operate on other markets.
This model of mafia emergence seems imminently applicable to post-Soviet
Georgia. However, I will try to show in this chapter that the mafia, in the specificsense defined above, existed prior to the break up of the Soviet state’s monopoly on
property in Georgia. Before the collapse, the Soviet state only in theory held amonopoly on property which in Varese’s model above prevents the increase intransactions and demand for trust-inducing institutions to lower the cost of thosetransactions.
A complete monopoly on property rarely exists in the real world. The Soviet
state lacked such a monopoly for a number of reasons. Firstly, the state itself went
through ‘liberal’ phases when some privatisation was brought in. By the 1960s, 10%of GNP was from legal, private sources, mainly in the agricultural sector (Feldbrugge
1989, p. 307). Georgia developed a larger private sector than most. Shevardnadze
instituted the Abasha Experiment in 1973 that allowed certain degrees of private
ownership on small landholdings with a percentage of the produce going to the state
and a proportion remaining in private hands (Ekedahl & Goodman 2001). This cameover ten years prior to Gorbachev’s economic reforms known as perestroika whichwere to give over greater amounts of the economy to private business. Secondly,
through over-regulating and criminalising a huge range of activity connected withprivate ownership ‘tendencies,’ as they were known, the state forced a great deal ofprivate economic activity underground. In this space, which grew to huge proportions,
illicit economic activity could not be regulated by the state by definition, and thiscreated a demand for extra-legal protection in transactions.

84

The de facto lack of a state monopoly on property in the later Soviet period led
to a demand for trust in transactions. Humphreys (2002, p. 109) argues that the main
activity of thieves-in-law in the Soviet period was the inducement of this trust throughthe provision of protection, operating between the corrupt bureaucracy and the second
economy businessmen known as teneviki or del’tsi who produced goods and services
for the second economy. Humphreys also contends that competition amongst
hooligans, gangs and other criminal elements to extort profits from the second
economy was regulated by the presence of the qurdebi, who acted as the krysha fromwhich a group could become recognised, gain reputation and operate successfully.
Without a prominent criminal authority at its head, a protection racket would always
be vulnerable to being forced out of a given market, territory, or area of the economy.
Plekhanov (2003) also suggests that the level of involvement of the thieves-inlaw in the second economy went further than simple organised criminal activity but
was something more akin to a mafia as I have defined it. According to Plekhanov, thesecond economy was a three-tiered structure with corrupt bureaucrats at the top, black
market entrepreneurs in the middle and qurdebi on the ground floor, forming
protective partnerships with the businessmen, that is, entering into business with themrather than simply racketeering or stealing from them on a one off basis. Plekhanovsuggests that common prison experience facilitated ties between the bottom andmiddle tiers of actors.
For these reasons, proposition 0) in Varese’s model does not hold for later
Soviet Georgia. From the 1960s onwards Soviet Georgia is better seen as having
already reached stage 1) and therefore 2) and 3) logically follow. In the Soviet casethe state cannot meet the demand for trust in transactions (proposition 4) not due to
weakness, as is implied in the original model, but because it is forbidden to do so by85

its own law. Given this, propositions 5) and 6) follow so long as there is a supply ofpeople with the resources to meet the demand for trust where the state fails. I submitthat this supply was met in Soviet Georgia in some cases, though not all, by actors
socialised in the penal subculture of the Gulag, the main counter-culture of the Soviet
Union (Dobson 2009), of which the kanonieri qurdebi represent the most visible andorganised part.
The rest of the chapter will show this and is structured as follows. The next
section (4.2) attempts to show that Varese’s propositions 1-4 can be applied to Soviet
Georgia but that proposition 4 depends on the state’s strength in regulation andcriminalisation of private economic activity rather than weakness in protecting
property rights. This leads me to argue that a mafia had indeed formed before thecollapse of the Soviet Union in Georgia. Thus, section 4.3 goes on to shows that thedemand for protection in the Soviet second economy was in fact met by the qurdebi. I
establish this by appealing to archival material that clearly shows Georgia’s problem
with this type of criminal and how this problem was manifesting itself at the time.
This chapter then establishes the pre-existence of a mafia in Soviet Georgia
and the main methods of extracting resources for the qurdebi network. The chapter
leads into chapter 5 which discusses the post-Soviet period. The effects of thesechanges on the resilience of the qurdebi to exogenous shocks will be discussed later atthe end of chapter 5.

864.2 The Second Economy in Soviet Georgia

Corruption and second economy activities were vital in providing the qurdebi
opportunities to increase their influence to act within the Soviet republic of Georgia as
I will show. However, it is important to briefly discuss the size of the Georgian
second economy as this gives a feeling for the extent of the activity and transactions
that were unprotected by recourse to the law.
Soviet Georgia was one of the most corrupt republics in the post-Stalin periodwith a huge second economy and often singled out by the Communist Party as a place
to be purged of its crooked elements. However, though this is often stated as a fact it
is notoriously difficult to estimate the size of the second economy relative to otherplaces. One method is to measure legal income per capita against income dependent
variables such as purchased goods in state stores. For the whole of the Soviet Union,
the correlation between these two variables declines after 1965 and disappears in the
1980s, suggesting income from other unrecorded sources (Grossman 1998, p. 39).
However, it is difficult to say what this shows. The result may be generated from alack of consumable goods in state stores by the 1980s rather than increasing informal
income.
Other measures applied by economists in the Berkeley-Duke Occasional
Papers on the Second Economy in the USSR involve a range of methods that givevarying estimates. Treml (1992) computes labour inputs into private economic
activity and suggests that 12% of time was given over to the pursuit of second
economy activity in the USSR of 1979. Grossman (1991) uses household survey datafrom official and unofficial sources and estimates unofficial income of 50% of total
income in Georgia and Azerbaijan versus 27% in Russia by 1989. Kaufmann and87

Kaliberda (1996) calculate GDP growth against change in electricity consumption
assuming that cases where the latter outstripped the former indicate second economy
activity. However, these results only allow for a blanket estimate that suggests thesecond economy made up 12% of Soviet GDP as a whole by 1989.
Critiquing the latter study and combining the above approaches, Pyle andAlexeev (2003) combine these data sources and estimates. They arrive at a figure forthe second economy as 22% of the GDP of the Soviet Union in 1989, with variation
across republics. Adding in and scaling Grossman’s (1991) household survey results
to their findings, Alexeev and Pyle find that Georgia had the largest second economy
in the Soviet Union along with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with 33% of
GDP produced by the illicit sector.
This result fits with common perception, contemporary opinion and historicalstudies of the Soviet Union. According to Ekedahl and Goodman (2001, p. 10), in
terms of black markets Georgia was ‘second to none,’ with, says Lampert (1984, p.
372), ‘the most notoriety’ amongst Transcaucasian Republics. These republics have a‘special position’ regarding corruption according to Feldbrugge (1989, p. 309) who
adds, ‘particularly Georgia’. Law (1974), Sampson (1987), and Grossman (1998) all
also note the disproportionately high levels of corruption and misappropriation in
Soviet Georgia.
Comparing all Soviet republics in terms of the size of the second economy
Feldbrugge (1989, p. 309) finds that, ‘rural Georgia tops the league with 32% of
personal income derived from the illegal sector of the second economy.’ Farmers
could earn as much as three times their usual income from private plots. Suny (1994,
p. 306) finds that Georgians were selling more produce on black markets thanelsewhere writing that ‘only 68 percent of fruits and vegetables produced in Georgia88

in 1970 were marketed, compared to 88 percent in Azerbaijan and 97 percent inArmenia.’ In the same year, the average Georgian’s savings were twice as large as theSoviet average (Suny 1994, p. 304). Jobs in the services sector were highly desirable
as necessary services gave great opportunities to solicit bribes. Thus, by 1973,
Georgia had the highest number of doctors per 10,000 people in the world (Ibid, p.
307).
Explanations in the above-mentioned studies as to the variations in second
economic activity appeal mainly to cultural factors such as the tight-knit kin relations
that facilitate the development of significant networks, nepotism as a moral value, andthe lack of trust in the state. Mars and Altman (1983) take this argument the furthest
however, suggesting that Georgian cultural values, such as competition (particularly
in consumer habits), risk-taking, honour based on trust, and networking, are anathema
to Soviet attitudes but dovetail perfectly with the attitude needed to both create ademand for a second economy and supply that demand. They argue (1983, p. 559):‘[O]ther Soviet-type economies display the same kind of second economy practices,
they too depend for much of their informal economic activity on friends of friends. But
it is the degree to which networks in Georgia are institutionalised as a means oflinking individuals through trust-based honour commitments that form thecornerstone of Georgia’s second economy. The difference may appear one of degree
but it is based on a fundamental cultural distinction.’

The extent to which the difference may be simply one of ‘cultural distinction’is not entirely clear however. There were political economic reasons why these
networks were able to flourish and make Georgia so remarkable as a corrupt republic
for contemporary commentators and for the central authority in Moscow. Firstly,
following the death of Stalin in 1953, the Politburo in Moscow opened up thequestion of nationalities again with more autonomy given to local elites to manage

89

their own affairs and mild nationalism tolerated. In Georgia, Vasily Mzhavanadze
lasted as first secretary from 1953 to 1972. These 19 years allowed the Georgian
communist elite to become an entrenched local network of cronies. As Suny (1994, p.
306) puts it, ‘uninterrupted power for 19 years had given the post-Stalinist clique analmost completely free hand within the republic.’ The main reason for
Mzhavanadze’s eventual removal ‘according to the recollections of many former
communists of the time was the blossoming in the republic of negative trends: theabuse of public office, corruption, misappropriation of state and public property
amongst other things’ (Rostiashvili 2002, p. 7).
Secondly, despite the Soviet march towards modernisation, Georgia remained
one of the most rural republics in the Soviet Union by 1979 (Suny 1994, p. 296). Its
climate and geography naturally geared the republic more towards farming, andillegal economic activity was more common in smaller organisations in the
agricultural sector than in big industry (Lampert 1984, p. 378). In both cases theopportunities for collusion and clientelism were greater and corrupt networks easier toregulate.
Thirdly, Shevardnadze’s attempts to drive out corruption, as the republic’s
Interior Minister and then as first secretary from 1972, were unsuccessful. Conviction
rates did not increase massively though high-profile cases and a media campaign
helped to spread the popular perception that reform was occurring (Rostiashvili 2002,
p. 12). Instead, as a prelude to his support for Gorbachev in the 1980s, Shevardnadze
at this time in Georgia proved himself to have liberal attitudes to economic reform.
‘He endorsed privatisation, giving rein to entrepreneurial spirit by allowing consumer
enterprises to run semi-private lives and making Georgia the first republic to allow
family ownership of small enterprises’ (Ekedahl & Goodman 2001, p. 18).

90

Shevardnadze himself (in Ibid) claimed, ‘our republic has been turned into a proving
ground for economic experiments.’
Thus, in Georgia, the Brezhnev years (1964-1982) of economic stagnation
produced black marketers known as teneviki or del’tsi of varying stripes including
speculators (spekulyanty-fartovshchiki) and con-artists (napyorstochniki). There werealso those that provided in-demand goods, the tsekhoviki, who controlled small, often
illegal, enterprises (tsekhi) that either produced illegal goods on legitimate production
facilities or siphoned off the legitimate goods intended for the state shops and insteadsold them for private profit. An example of the tsekhoviki was discovered by theauthorities in 1978 when one group operating at a fruit juice works in the Terdjola
region made over half a million rubles through falsified documents by which theyprocured fruit, created a fake juice product and sold it through a trade network (PA,
14/117/331/24)15.
Another example comes from textile factory no. 4 in Tbilisi. The plant was
opened in 1960 yet by 1968 large-scale embezzlement was taking place. That year 33
workers were tried for the misappropriation of over 1 million rubles worth of state
property. The conspirators included the directors, engineers, accountants, thewarehouse foreman, and supervisors of various units; 350 people were investigated in
total.

The methodof embezzlement

involved

false accounting

and

the

misappropriation of clothing made at the factory. Of the 33 who were brought to trial
12 were so-called del’tsi, businessmen or speculators, who ‘grouped at the factory’.
According to the prosecutor’s report, the del’tsi were connected to salesmen who
could sell the misappropriated goods in order to realise the profits (PA,14/144/453/32-33). Remarkably, reports on the fight with crime for 1984, 16 years
15

Presidential Archive, hereafter, PA. The numbers stand for location in the archive Holding/List/File/Page (Fond/Opis/Delo/Stranitsa)

91

later, include cases of analogous crimes using the very same method being carried out
in the towns of Samtredia and Kutaisi amongst others. By 1984, the reports note (PA,
14/125/348/37-38), the del’tsi had made tight ‘“business” connections’ in other Soviet
republics where they engage in ‘various ruses and dubious trade deals.’Speculators made money from the demand for scarce items by selling theseproducts on the black market at a marked up price. The report on speculation for 1985
gave figures and examples of cases (PA, 19/127/329). The number of prosecuted
cases of speculation was growing in Georgia year on year in the first half of the 1980s
from 1,302 cases in 1981 to 1,586 cases in 1985. In-demand medical items could
fetch handsome profits for speculators: one Binashvili of Kutaisi was sentenced to 6
years after selling a medicine for 365 rubles that would have otherwise gone for justover 10 rubles in a state shop. Sought-after fish products such as sturgeon and caviar
could also fetch high prices on the black market as well as foreign goods such as
Austrian bed sets and Japanese video-players and cassettes. Products could beobtained and transported between Soviet republics. A Georgian lady living in
Moscow and maintaining contact with foreigners was able to repeatedly obtain boxesof beer, Italian chocolate spread, Danish biscuits and nuts and have them transported
to Tbilisi to another lady through an intermediary, a Georgian lorry driver, who wasoften in Moscow on official trips. The intermediary also shuttled the proceeds of theactivity back and forth before being eventually caught (PA, 19/127/329/23-24).
The above gives an impression of the depth and range of the second economy
in Georgia and some detail as to the actual activities of the del’tsi and speculators.
What should now be made clear is that the fusion of Soviet Georgia’s upper worldand underground economies allowed predatory actors opportunities for parasitic
behaviour. The Georgian ‘mafia’ at this time as Suny (1994, p. 326) describes it was92‘the complex network of entrepreneurs, politicians, and criminals that ran much of thesecond economy under the Soviets.’ This is similar to Vaksberg’s definition of theSoviet Mafia as being all those who protected illegal activities to appropriate state
wealth and redistribute it amongst mutually interested cliques going right up to
Brezhnev (Vaksberg, 1991). These definitions of ‘mafias’ are too broad to bemeaningful however. A corrupt policeman or communist official may be able toprotect an illegal enterprise from the attentions of the law but would not be able toeasily protect against predation or cheating in transactions between the second
economy actors themselves (Reuter 1985). Thus, I restrict my definition of the mafia
to the bottom tier of Plekhanov’s (2003) schema discussed above: the criminal aspect,those with violent resources who could employ them in the sale of protection over agiven area and operated as an alternative form of governance.
Such extra-legal governance may occur where two or more parties interested
in making a transaction require a third-party enforcer and there is no recourse to any
formal law. Reuter (1985) notes that two major consequences of the illegality of an
economic activity is the non-enforceable nature of informal contracts and the agency
costs involved in ensuring that nobody gives away the operation. These problems are
manifest in the examples of second economy activity in Soviet Georgia above.
For example, the 33 workers in the textile firm example above conspired torob the factory they worked for out of thousands of rubles. Such a large-scale
operation with so many people runs a huge risk of defection by a whistleblower who
may for example report the activity to either a clean or corrupt official who, in thecase of the latter, would then be able to cut him or herself in with the threat ofprosecution. The example of the speculators operating between Moscow and Tbilisi
also provides coordination problems: how can the parties trust each other to deliver

93the goods in the right quantity or handle the money correctly? What happens if a
dispute arises? These cases suggest that there were market opportunities with thoseskilled in dispute resolution and with a willingness to use force to ensure an informal
agreement was carried through.
However, it does not follow that someone will necessarily take up theseopportunities. The presence of the del’tsi in the second economy and the unprotected
cooperatives formed during perestroika do not by themselves give rise to mafia
activities. There must be a supply of people with the necessary skills in dispute
resolution and, fundamentally, in violence. In Soviet Georgia it seems that in somecases such people emerged from the penal subculture. These actors had been throughan initiation ritual in prison and called themselves kanonieri qurdebi belonging to acriminal social institution with complex behavioural rules and norms known as thequrduli samkaro or ‘thieves’ world’.
The qurdebi as a criminal status-group had a competitive edge in providing
protection. They already had many pre-existing assets - a brand name that
communicated a reputation for respectable toughness, a code of honour that included
prescribed sanctions and rewards, and rituals transferred from the Gulag subculture
outside the prison walls. To some degree they were the main representatives of not
merely a penal subculture but an anti-Soviet counterculture (Dobson 2009). The long
history of the qurdi title going back to the repressions of the Gulag of the 1930s
enabled them to build on an almost mythical reputation as disenchantment with thecommunist regime grew in the later Soviet period.
Moreover, they could offer an outstanding property that must have appealed toblack marketers who, as we have seen, in some cases were operating across Soviet
republics: the qurdebi already had established practices for transferring information94

covertly across large distances. The difficulty in securely disseminating information is
one of the biggest restraints on the growth of illegal enterprises as they cannot
advertise openly or take on the agency costs of widening operations across distances(Reuter 1985). The qurdebi had dealt with such problems for decades and could bringthis experience to the second economy. Though it was against the spirit of their
original code, the qurdebi had clearly started to involve themselves in this second
economy and had taken up a niche outside the prison camps. I now intend to show thelink, based on archival sources, between the qurdebi and the Soviet second economy.

4.3 The Qurdebi in Soviet Georgia

The Stalinist days of mass imprisonment both before and after the Second
World War unleashed certain consequences for subsequent Soviet leaders. In the first
five years after Stalin’s death four million prisoners were released from the camps andby 1960 the Gulag was a fifth of the size it had been on the eve of Stalin’s death(Dobson 2009, p. 109). The influence of returnees was insidious. The subculture of
the camps provided an alternative set of values and behavioural norms that someyoung people found attractive to emulate. It also had a direct impact through theincrease in the commission of criminal acts and the organising of criminal groups. In
the late 1950s crime was rising steeply and ‘thieves-recidivists’ as they were termed,
were problematised with an official monograph on the subject published by
Monakhov (1957). In 1959 the prosecutor of Cheliabinsk oblast in Central Russia
wrote ‘the danger of the recidivist…lies in the fact that he creates criminal gangs,
which draw in people without previous convictions, particularly young people’ (in95Dobson 2009, p. 125). These criminal gangs may well have been the beginnings of a
Soviet mafia as I have defined it above and Georgia was not immune to its influence.
Once Shevardnadze had become First Secretary of the Georgian Soviet
Republic in 1972 he made a point of addressing the pervasive problems of crime andcorruption that had fomented in the previous decades. A resolution of the GeorgianCentral Committee from 1973 sought to strengthen the fight against theft. Reports on
the results of these measures were submitted in 1980 and again in 1981. The reportfor 1981 cites continuing ‘complexity and laboriousness’ regarding the level ofproperty crime and theft. However, improvements in the solving of criminal cases led
to a greater rate of solved crimes between 1977 and 1980 (PA, 14/123/360/90). The
report also declares that on the basis of the previous resolutions operative work had
been carried out in order to compromise the ‘so-called thieves-in-law, and those who
support the thieves’ traditions’ (Ibid, p. 89). In the course of investigating theirlifestyles, connections, criminal intentions, and work status, 20 qurdebi had beenarrested that year.
These qurdebi are mentioned in the report by name or nickname suggesting a
special notoriety. They operated using organised criminal groups. Many of thesegroups were exposed on a large scale in Georgia in 1980. There were 798 groups
uncovered and from those groups 1,664 persons convicted (Ibid. p. 96). The numbers
are probably so large because they include those who conspired to misappropriate
state property (del’tsi) but also groups engaged in burglary, robbery, armed robbery,
and car theft. What constitutes a group is not mentioned but one concrete example ofa group that committed 12 armed robberies, theft and burglary contained only threemembers (Ibid).

96

The problems with ‘group crime’16, as it was termed at the time, continued
despite the government measures. By 1985, with Shevardnadze in Moscow, new First
Secretary Jumber Paatiashvili was determined to make his mark on the criminal
justice situation in the republic and held a hearing of the top brass of the law
enforcement bodies of Georgia on the results of the fight against crime in the firstquarter of 1986. In this period Paatiashvili had ordered the exile of kanonieri qurdebi
from Georgia which according to one officer had succeeded:‘[T]he fact that recently we have been able to rid the republic of many “thieves-inlaw”, sending them to places of harsh climates and conditions has raised the prestigeof our police force. Many letters, the result of surveying public opinion, bear witness
to this. And it has again proved that prestige, respect – these are the heights weachieve by our work, by leading by example, by concrete investment in the Party’splans for social transformation’ (PA, 14/127/330/52).

Another officer, the assistant head of criminal investigations in Tbilisi, reportsthat in the period, 50 criminal groups had been exposed with 120 people arrested in
the capital city, having carried out more than 70 crimes (Ibid, p. 16).
These Georgian sources then attest that the qurdebi were members of andengaged in operating illegal criminal groups that committed robberies and theft. It isclear then that the qurdebi and their groups were indeed a potential supply of violent
people who could, if they turned their hand to it, engage in mafia activities. However,
simple robbery and theft are not on the face of it mafia activities though these
activities would have provided an income stream in themselves, selling off stolen
goods on the black market. However, these activities also added to the demand for
effective protection. Once a crime has been committed, a qurdi can also offer a

16

In the language of the 1980s, ‘organised crime’ was not yet in use. Instead, reports of this time speakof ‘group criminality’ [gruppovoi prestupnost’].

97

service in the extra-legal pursuit of justice. Theft itself creates a market for protection
where the state fails or is mistrusted.
Small desirable commodities of which there were shortages, jewellery, carparts and medicines for example, need to be fenced and trust is required for this.
Moreover, a crime such as car theft leaves the car thieves with a headache: a large
stolen automobile in a police state with a low rate of car variation and ownershipmakes getting rid of hot vehicles quickly desirable but troublesome. Thus, in Soviet
Georgia, the owner would most likely be offered his car back to him, intact though
not necessarily untouched, for a fee rather than the car being sold on (R40)17. In thiscase the qurdebi were renowned as intermediaries between the car owner and car
thieves to the extent that even the police might use a trusted qurdi in ‘solving’ anembarrassing car theft quickly and effortlessly (R5).
In the above case the qurdebi engage in dispute resolution: bringing thecriminal group into an arrangement with the car owner in which both are satisfied andcan trust to be enforced (R17). The car theft and the transaction that follows represent
a business opportunity to the qurdi in which he is in competition with law
enforcement to help solve the situation in as favourable way as possible. Where thepolice are inefficient or made unattractive as an option due to the nature of the
dispute, if, for example, the stealers threaten to destroy the car if the police become
involved, the qurdebi might have certain advantages.
Here again, it is certainly the case that the qurdi himself can drum up businessas a third party decision-maker and enforcer by ensuring, through his criminal
connections, that there are plenty of disputes of this kind to be handled. However,other disputes may occur autonomously of the individual qurdi in other spheres. Such

17

‘R’ stands for respondent. A list of all respondents can be found in the bibliography.

98

disputes if they are to be handled by a qurdi, must be of necessity outside the purview
of the police, that is to say, illegal. As detailed above the Soviet period offered awhole range of activities connected to private enterprise that were criminalised. The
criminalisation of most sorts of privately profitable activity created a large second
economy that was a natural source of opportunity for both corrupt party bosses andwould be mafia types. For example, in some cases that respondents reported,
speculators operating over long distances used recourse to kanonieri qurdebi topromote trustworthiness (R9; R12).
Furthermore, the links between professional criminals and the qurdebi and thesecond economy are substantiated by archival documents from Georgia. A secretdirective of the Interior Ministry from August 1982 (MVD-A, 0152/1982/2) statesclearly that:‘those who maintain and lead the “thieves’ traditions” in recent times are coalescingwith “entrepreneurs” [del’stami] and with the embezzlers of socialist property,
operating as guards and protectors. However, information on such people cannot
always be found in the offices of the BKhSS [department for the struggle withembezzlement of socialist property and speculation].’

The tendency noted by the Georgian MVD in 1982, was again discussed in a
Union-level directive of the MVD sent down from Moscow in 1985 (MVD-A,
0033/1985/2-3):‘Incidences of the coalescence [srashivanie] between criminal groups and majorembezzlers of socialist property have been noted. Those who call themselves “thievesin-law” act on their standing amongst criminal elements. With the goal ofresurrecting criminal traditions, they create common thieves’ stashes (“obshchaki”),
hold illegal meetings – “skhodki”, and are instrumental in the formation of tightgroups of criminals.’

99

The document lays the blame at the feet of the workings of the Ministry ofInterior (MVD) and especially the lack of cooperation between the police,prosecution, prison administration and the BKhSS, concluding that, ‘work is being
carried out unsatisfactorily on detection and investigation of “thieves-in-law,” leaders
and active participants of criminal groups in places of detention’ (Ibid, p. 4).
This last document complains about the organised criminal activity occurringin most parts of the Soviet Union from Central Asia to Moscow and Leningrad. Thus,
it should not be supposed that Georgia was somehow unique in the problem oforganised crime influenced by thieves-in-law. However, the argument follows that if
the thieves-in-law of the Soviet Union were indeed operating off the back of theentrepreneurial tier of the second economy, then where these entrepreneurs were more
active there also should have been more opportunity for and influence of the thievesin-law. This follows Varese’s model which predicts that the greater the amount of freeenterprise insufficiently protected, the more opportunities there will be forindependent suppliers of protection. This was proved true as the racketeering that had
been going on in the shadows of the second economy finally came out in the open
when Gorbachev legalised certain forms of private economic activity, the cooperatives, in the late 1980s. The cooperatives became a major target of racketeers.
One source (Jones & Moskoff 1991, p. 85) states that 75% of these new private
enterprises in Moscow were racketeered.18

18

In May 1987, Gorbachev passed the Law on Individual Labour Activity that allowed a degree ofentrepreneurship within the state-owned Soviet economy. In 1988 the Law on Cooperatives was passed
permitting the ownership of private enterprises. By 1st of January 1990, 200,000 of these coops had
been registered. The number of crimes related to the cooperative movement increased by 500 per centin 1989. Often this type of activity took the form of protection racketeering or extortion and thecomplementary blackmailing and removing of competitors. The rise in violent crime was facilitated bydismissive police attitudes towards protecting ‘capitalists’, and the fact that many cooperatives wereinvolved in economic crime and so could not turn to the authorities. Racketeers were pervasive, 75 percent and 90 per cent of cooperatives in Moscow and St. Petersburg paid protection money respectively(Jones & Moskoff, 1991 p. 85).

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A plausible footnote to this discussion then is that with a bigger second
economy, and therefore more market opportunities for a protection-providingorganisation - what I have called here a mafia - Georgia would have a larger share ofsuch criminals involved in this activity proportionate to its size. This is surely acontributing factor in accounting for the number of thieves-in-law hailing from
Georgia relative to the other Soviet republics, though of course it cannot be a
sufficient condition as other countries with significant second economies such as
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would also have strong mafias and, given
their common Soviet past, greater numbers of thieves-in-law.

4.4 Conclusion

There appears to be a clear historical basis then for how Georgia eventually
succumbed to the influences of the Soviet underworld once it reached independence
in 1991. This was in large part due to an ever-increasing pool of resources from a
growing demand for informal protection and dispute resolution from diverse sources
expanding along with the second economy and unprotected private enterprise. There
was in fact no monopoly on property in Soviet Georgia, private economic transactions
between individuals were growing as the Soviet Union aged and these were
unprotected by law not due to state weakness but because the transactions themselves
had been criminalised. By the 1980s there was clearly a supply of violent individuals
socialised by Gulag subculture who performed ‘group crime’ across the republicwhich, according to archival sources, involved the protection of second economy
actors. Some heads of the criminal groups were identified clearly by this time asthieves-in-law. Following Varese’s model the above suggests that a mafia had already101emerged before the 1990s in Georgia. I turn now to the post-Soviet period arguingthat the coupling of a move to a capitalist system with the breakdown of the state
resulted in an acceleration of the conditions that cause a mafia to emerge in the firstplace: an increase in transactions unprotected by the state.

102

5. The Qurdebi as a Post-Soviet Mafia‘In particular, [a qurdi] must be good at psychology, because his basic role is to be athird party in various disputes and misunderstandings, for this it is absolutely
necessary to be good at dealing with people. It’s not bad to be an educated person.’Georgian kanonieri qurdi Antimoz (in Korchinskii 2008)

The collapse of the Soviet Union ushered in an era that has been termed
Georgia’s ‘time of trouble’ (Zurcher 2006). The country experienced ‘unprecedented
state collapse’ (Legvold, 2006). The institutions of the state became demoralised andviolence-wielding groups gained free reign in many parts of the country. The official
economy virtually collapsed and complex patterns of patronage in the form of
informal brokerage between regional power-holders and the central government
became stabilised under Shevardnadze following his return to Georgia in 1992
(Wheatley 2005). Such a situation where the state had virtually abdicated and given
up its monopoly on violence and its ability to extract resources from the population
provides fertile ground for a mafia to emerge.
In Georgia criminal groups headed by kanonieri qurdebi and that, in essence,
constituted a mafia was already in existence. However, it would be wrong to simply
assert that the mafia in Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union was simply the103

continuation of a well-defined ‘Red Mafia’ (Handelman 1995; Anderson 1995). The
re-structuring of the economy and society allowed new mafia-like groups to emerge,
and old ones to expand and adapt. Thus, just as with other behaviours carried over
into the post-communist period, the qurdebi’s essential activities should not be
conceptualised as somehow arising from communism or springing fresh from the newconditions of capitalist economic relations. As Lotspeich (1995, p. 564) writes ofEastern Europe, ‘criminality may well rise because of particular features of thetransition process combined with the persistence of past behaviour.’ The post-Soviet
era was marked by greater criminal activity, mafia wars and social breakdown, yet theviolent actors that fuelled this were not somehow totally new creations but had
emerged and adapted from the Soviet past (Karstedt 2003; Derluguian 2005).
The qurdebi were certainly not the only violent mafia actor to emerge into thepost-Soviet present. Their most serious competition came in the shape of the new
patriotic paramilitaries that formed in the wake of the Soviet collapse and secessionist
struggles. The most prominent of these were Mkhedrioni and the National Guard run
by convicted criminals. Indeed, Mkhedrioni was founded by a qurdi, Jaba Ioseliani.
According to Wheatley (2005, p. 78) Mkhedrioni and the National Guard became‘mafia-type organisations that resorted to extortion to obtain their resources,’ and had
become rivals by November 1992. Both fundamentally moved into the qurdebi
business sphere. I document in much greater detail the threat this caused to thequrdebi later (see chapter 7). For now, it is enough to note that the collapse of theSoviet Union and move to a market economy brought about a lot of competition for
racketeering contracts.
Despite serious competition then, during Shevardnadze’s time according to agovernment report (Prison Service 2006), ‘influential vory-v-zakone [thieves-in-law]104

divided most of the fields of activity as well as the country itself into exclusive
spheres of influence….this network effectively integrated with state officials….mostof Georgia’s medium and small-scale businessmen were racketeered.’ The qurdebi inthe more stable later 1990s were able to push into many sectors of the economy andsociety. Despite the different structural conditions then an important argument here isthat the essence of the qurdebi’s activities had not changed but simply expanded.
This chapter remains within the theoretical framework developed in theprevious chapter. Below I describe the main supply of resources from the provision ofservices which were most basically the krysha (protection) and garcheva (arbitration
or dispute resolution). I provide data on the various sectors where the qurdebi wereactive in both legal and illegal markets and where possible give concrete examples ofthese. I argue that the weakly protected property rights in a new capitalist economy
increased the supply of resources and the diversification of their sources in contrast to
the Soviet period.

5.1 Krysha and Garcheva: Practices of Protection and Arbitration

Racketeering it its classical form is the provision of protection to a physicalentity or individual securing them from the unwanted approaches of the racketeer
himself, other extortionists, and independent operators such as thieves and hooligans.
As mentioned, in the post-Soviet space this racketeering is known by the Russian
term krysha, or ‘roof’. This type of protection still operates through selling
guarantees, in this case a guarantee of deterrence against unwanted attention for a cut,
known in Georgian as tavi. A krysha can also involve the provision of dispute105

resolution and the enforcement of informal agreements. This practice is known inGeorgian as garcheva and was an important function the qurdebi performed.
In principle, all criminal funds, from those taken as tavi from racketeered
businessmen to the proceeds of low-level street criminals, are supposed to be pooled
into the common fund, known as the obshchak, to be used by the qurdebi and theirmen. Supporters of the criminal world might pay into the obshchak entirely
voluntarily. The degree of voluntarism is unclear however, as this might take the formof a type of tax regularly taken from citizens living within a confined territory (R22).
This appears to be the case in the small village of Taglioni in the Gali district in thedemilitarized zone between Abkhazia and Georgia where the qurdi Merab Okudzhava‘regularly collected tribute from the residents of his region in the form of a regularsum of money’ (Prime Crime 2007). In an argument over collecting for the obshchakin March 2007, Okudzhava shot one of his potential contributors in the leg (Ibid).
A further aspect of a mafia is that they are autonomous from any one customer
in the supply of protection, that is, a mafia group is not simply a group of violent
individuals in the employ of a larger business organisation but stand alone as a selfgoverning entity that may offer its protection to whoever might require it (Gambetta
1993; Varese 2001). There are no cases in the data collected and analysed below
where a qurdi was simply internalised within a single business. However, there aremany cases where a qurdi protects a business by becoming a shareholder in private
joint stock companies. The interests of the qurdi as a shareholder and the company heprotects can be quite intertwined. There are also cases where the qurdi has his own
company often in a relative’s name. These companies presumably have automaticallyinternalized protection.

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In many cases qurdebi racketeered some businesses whilst being shareholders
in others. For example, a qurdi named A. from Chiatura in the Imereti region
racketeered a wine factory and held shares in two manganese mining firms.
Shareholding in this instance meant installing avtoriteti, or criminal strongmen, at thefirms and ensuring the qurdi’s share is looked after. Through this method A. also
maintained a cut in protecting the production and distribution of the Borjomi mineralwater and scrap metal which had become a big export commodity. Others have lesscomplex business interests. Another Imereti qurdi simply protected a range of service
providers including a betting shop, an optician and another company all located in thecentre of Kutaisi (AOCU-T 2004).
Below I present a table that shows the business interests of 66 different
qurdebi from across Georgia. Compiling and going through these files I recorded eachmention of individual enterprises under the protection of a qurdi before attributing
each enterprise to a specific sector of the economy. The numbers below are much
lower than they would have been had every enterprise been listed for each qurdi
which could not be done in every case. For example, one qurdi was described ashaving interests in many petrol stations, I coded this singularly as an interest in fuelretailing in the services sector as it was unclear how many individual businesses wereinvolved. Otherwise, each case (N=182) represents a business that fell under the
influence of the qurdebi as protectors against physical threat and/or businesscompetition or as straightforward extorters. Furthermore in some cases the protectionreferred to in each case might be through a qurdi possessing shares. I have included asector called ‘organised crime’ where this means areas of illegal activity being
protected such as gangs committing car theft. There were a few cases ofstraightforward ownership usually by a qurdi’s relative. For most qurdebi more than107

one business interest was specified in the files and sometimes these interests
transcended sectors. The information below was compiled by the police in 2004.

Qurdebi Actvities by Sector
Finance andConstruction

8

SectorNaturalResources

20

Services

54

82

Goods
Organised
Crime

26
0

20

40

60

80

100

Cases

Table 5.1 to show enterprises protected by the qurdebi by sector
Source: AOCU-T & K 2004

The number of qurdebi that the police have adequate information on meansthat the above table is in no way meant to be exhaustive. However, it does give an
indication of the areas in which the qurdebi were most active. It also shows that thequrdebi often involve themselves in more than one area and usually protect more than
one enterprise. The organised crime sector, as mentioned, refers to the ‘protection’ or
use of an organised crime group in committing illegal acts such as armed robbery andcar theft. This represents an income source for many qurdebi and obviously links to108

the protection function in that the operation of organised crime groups drums upbusiness. ‘Goods’ refers to protection of enterprises engaged in the production,
distribution and sale of both consumable and production items. This sector includes awide range of businesses including supermarkets, market stalls, bakeries, a chicken
farm, mineral water, jewellers, petrol stations, vodka and wine factories, tractor, carand crane production. ‘Services’ includes such things as casinos, car mechanics, minibuses, hotels, bars, restaurants, sports (football and boxing), pool halls and local TV
stations. The ‘resources’ sector refers to the exploitation of timber; the extractive
industries, such as manganese, marble, and coal; energy (oil refining, distribution andstorage of fuel); and many cases of the trade in scrap metal, which was an important
Georgian export in the post-Soviet period. ‘Finance and construction’ refers to
involvement with banks and construction companies.
The latter sector, finance and construction, has very few mentions in the data
and tend to involve the most authoritative and well-known qurdebi. In terms offinance, perhaps this is because control of banks and building societies required
political connections that only the biggest qurdebi had. The construction sector ismore of a surprise. This industry entails multiple transactions between many players,
and is usually an area susceptible to mafia penetration (Jacobs et al 2001; Schneider& Schneider 2003). There are numerous plausible explanations for low number of
instances of the qurdebi in this sector. Firstly, while qurdebi might not be involved ina registered construction firm, they might have influence over firms supplying theindustry with materials and thereby indirectly hold some sway. Secondly, it ispossible that, like banks, big construction companies are linked to players in thegovernment which might make them susceptible to extortion by very well-connected
qurdebi only. Finally, in Georgia in the 1990s, it is unlikely that there was much109

demand from the budget-less government itself for large-scale building projects andthus not many possibilities for mafia services in cartels for government tenders as has
been recorded in Italy and America (Gambetta & Reuter 2000).
There are commonsense reasons we might suppose that trade in goods andservices are so popular for the qurdebi. On the whole they represent the best value,
lowest risk investment in providing protection and the most common type of
economic endeavour undertaken by private individuals. They tend to be located atfixed addresses making it easier to divide up influence for the racketeers and reduce
the risk of internecine conflict (Lavezzi 2008). They offer a safer bet than enterprises
connected to natural resources whose outputs are necessarily scarcer and can therefore
command greater profits making competition fiercer amongst the mafia when they do
emerge. Furthermore, as with construction and finance, natural resources such as thelumber industry are often protected by the government (and in the case of 1990s
Georgia likely racketeered by the state agencies) creating further barriers to entry.
Finally, areas such as kidnapping, trafficking and drugs can be lucrative
activities to get involved in, and as we can see the qurdebi do involve themselves inthis (the organised crime sector). Yet mentions of these activities were not as
prevalent as might be otherwise supposed. This might be for a number of reasons. For
one thing, it is possible that these activities are harder for the police to find out about
and document. For another thing, it has been well-documented that illegal markets
such as drugs represent big challenges compared to the simple racketeering of small
and medium size enterprises in trade and services (Gambetta 1993, chap. 9). The drug
market presents problems in terms of logistics and the danger of conflict over thelarge profits to be made. More broadly, drugs, prostitution and kidnapping draw
attention to activities that may be seen as morally unacceptable in traditional

110

Georgian society. Carrying out armed robberies, extortion, kidnapping and supplying
drugs can cause huge problems for a mafia’s valued asset of reputation.
These issues might go some way to explain why the illegal or ‘organised
crime sector’ as I have called it is not more prevalent in the data. Below I go into
more detail as to the role of the qurdebi in the legal sectors such as trade in goods,
services, natural resources, and so on before considering the activities of the qurdebi
in the illegal sector.

5.2 The Qurdebi in the Legitimate Economy

In its basic form providing a krysha requires the control of a small number ofbusiness over a given territory (R5). Some small towns traditionally had one predominant industry which was often racketeered by a local qurdi. In Gurjaani ineastern Georgia, for example, this was the ice-cream factory whilst near the small
town of Bolnisi the extraction of gold was racketeered (R9). This situation suggests
an unequal distribution of objects amongst the qurdebi, however the mechanisms of
the obshchak and the skhodka allow a form of redistribution amongst made men tosome extent.
The racket in these cases in the main exists as a deterrent against petty crimeand competing extortionists. The business gains security through association withpowerful criminal actors with violent resources in the form of organised criminalgroups at their disposal. The problem for the business in these cases is that just as theenterprise itself might be one of the only games in town, so a criminal group caneasier monopolise territory in a small town than in bigger cities, and impose higher
costs for protection. In essence, the business suffers from a lack of criminal
111

competition. So, for example, the police believe Gurjaani’s ice-cream factory was
paying up to half of its profits to the qurdebi (R10).
However, other examples suggest that those protected are not just extorted but
gain some services for paying protection money or otherwise having close
connections with qurdebi. For example, a criminal ‘authority’ [avtoritet] withconnections to powerful qurdebi in Moscow demanded protection be given for anentrepreneur in the export-import business from extortion by two brothers ‘Irakli’ and‘Dato’ in Kutaisi (Kutaisi City Court 2008). In this case at least it seems theprotection could indeed be genuine. Furthermore, in competitive markets a businesscan gain from discouraging others from entering the market through the threat of theircriminal protector and I will give examples of this below.
I will now provide more in-depth studies of protection in different legal
sectors. I will look at protection of mini-bus routes and wholesalers to marketplaces
as well as the informal enforcement of agreements concerning the payment ofgambling debts and monies owned in the export of agricultural produce.

5.2.1 Mini-BusesAs Chu (1999, p. 57) has reported, in Hong Kong mini-bus route drivers
would often invite the Triads to protect them. Routes that the Triads were attracted towere those that were lucrative, where there was a demand for their service due todisorganisation amongst the drivers, and where the route was easy to monitor andmonopolise. In Georgia in the 1990s mini-buses were the only way to get around for
those without a car. There were virtually no bus services and trains were slow andtiresome. Mini-buses operate between towns and within towns. They are often
112

overloaded with passengers carrying assorted personal belongings, goods to market,
animals and plant life. Furthermore, the mini-buses simply pick up and drop off
passengers wherever they choose. They are incredibly unsafe both in terms of theobservation of rules of the road and the fact that over long distances in the 1990s a
metal shell containing 20 people and winding a lonely road between Kutaisi and
Tbilisi made a good target for armed robbers who would plant a member of theirgroup on the mini-bus as it set off in order to inform the rest of the group of its
progress easing the process of ambushing it (R36). Nevertheless, anyone who
managed to get the money together to buy a Ford Transit van could set themselves up
as a mini-bus driver. The problem then for those already in the market was how toensure physical protection and to raise the very low barriers to entry high enough tostop others from appearing on their routes, in order to, in effect, create a cartel on themost lucrative roads.
The threats to mini-bus drivers then from both competition and physicalintimidation made protection from the qurdebi more beneficial than in other spheresof business and it was an area where the qurdebi were heavily involved. The wire-tap
records in one court case from Kutaisi involve a man who calls up a criminal
authority, or avtoritet, to request help in finding a stolen minibus. The avtoritet agrees
to find out what happened to it. The caller suspects a garage guard in the theft andasks for permission to deal with this guard and take him ‘out into the forest’. The
avtoritet assents to this request (Kutaisi City Court 2008). Clearly the caller felt that
he was covered by the avtoritet’s krysha to act in this case.
Finding a stolen bus is one thing but monitoring and securing mini-bus drivers
over long routes are costly activities for a criminal group, as Chu (1999) notes. In the
town of Zugdidi, the mini-bus routes were divided up by two qurdebi from the town

113

with each driver paying a small fee every day, perhaps as little as $10, commensuratewith the small fares (around 20c) for a ride through town (R22). The mini-bus drivers
benefited to some extent from the qurdebi’s presence in their market by regulatingcompetition and providing physical protection and some appeared to actively support
this presence. For example, in Kutaisi the arrest of a prominent qurdi, Alexander
Imedadze, in 2004 created unrest. Several minibuses went missing and in response tothis, the drivers went on strike. Kutaisi’s vice-mayor immediately blamed the strikeon pressure from those connected to the qurdebi noting that the routes in the city had
been controlled by the qurdebi (Interpress 2004). However, it is of course possiblethat the strike action of the mini-bus drivers, rather than being indicative of thebenefits they received from the qurdi and support for him, was due to the fear of notshowing support for him.
On this point, it is worth underlining again however that though the qurdebi
protected the mini-buses from other drivers and from problems with other criminals
the drivers were often being simply extorted, that is, buying protection from the threatof the qurdebi themselves. One qurdi in Kutaisi organised robberies of mini-bus
drivers until they came together to pay him the sum of 30 lari (around $15) per day
per driver for protection (AOCU-T 2004).
Long distance routes were easier to simply prey upon and extort rather thanprotect. According to a former prosecutor and regional governor, the qurdebi wereinvolved in highway robbery themselves through controlling the hijacking groups(R36). Long distance protection could only be guaranteed against other criminalgroups in the form of a convoy however this would be expensive to provide. The
market for convoys in Georgia developed in the post-Soviet period though cases of
the qurdebi being involved in this appear to be restricted to short-distance routes. For

114

example, the qurdi B. provided protective convoys at the Black Sea port of Poti forvehicles, including mini-buses, involved in transporting shipping cargo from the sea
terminal to the town (AOCU-T 2004).
A convoy over a longer distance is probably a luxury a mini-bus driver does
not make enough money to afford. However, at the Ergneti market on the border
between Georgia and the de facto independent state of South Ossetia importers andwholesalers could, and in some cases had to, buy a protective convoy for their trucks
on their way to Tbilisi. This particular case appears to have been run by corrupt
transport police (Kukhianidze et al 2007). Perhaps these services were offered bycorrupt state actors as these, due to their official positions, had an advantage over a
criminal group in getting the truck or coach onwards to Tbilisi without being doggedby the attentions of the notoriously corrupt transport police who set up road checks at
this time and extorted drivers passing through.19

5.2.2 Market Wholesalers

Deterrence from competition as a form of the qurdebi’s protection was alsooffered in the marketplace. In one case that was reported, it appears the qurdebi were
not so interested in the division of territory of individual stores but in the wholesalers
supplying the market with goods. In return for a cut of the wholesaler’s profit thequrdi’s associates could ensure the sellers at the stalls and kiosks only bought a
specific good from the protected wholesaler. Unable to find anyone to buy their

19

Kakha Bendukidze the former finance minister reports that a truck travelling to Tbilisi from Borjomi
to distribute mineral water could be stopped by the corrupt transport police in excess of 50 times
incurring bribery costs of $100 and losing hours in time. REES Seminar, St. Antony’s College Oxford,
25.01.10115

produce, other wholesalers then found it difficult to enter the market. In this case theprotection afforded to the wholesaler results in the stall-owner also internalising theprotection of the wholesaler’s patron.
For example, one family struck upon the idea of buying cheap fruit andvegetables across the border in Turkey in large amounts, importing by the carload andselling them for a profit in Tbilisi. However, finding buyers for their produce proved
difficult:‘They went to the market place and they were bringing carloads of tomatoes forexample, and no-one would buy them…the marketplace was controlled by a qurdi, orin some cases an official, or in some cases them both together…they controlled who
could sell what, if you have a kiosk in the markets you only buy tomatoes from one
guy who has a krysha from the qurdi…they used to call the thing being sold after thequrdi or official controlling the trade…for example, ‘Mikho’s tomatoes.’ (R17)The Kutaisi qurdi Imedadze, who protected mini-bus routes in Kutaisi, also
maintained a protection racket on the stalls in the Imerti-2000 market and was
responsible for distributing the funds from the obshchak from these activities.
However, unlike the mini-bus drivers there is no mention of the market stall owners
striking when he was arrested in April 2004 (Novosti-Gruzii 2004).

5.2.3 Gambling and Debt Collection

The collection of debts and handling of disputes is one of the most traditional
activities of the qurdebi as originally this was performed by them in prison (Oleinik
2003). In a society with a weak banking system in which loans and credit are hard to
obtain, disputes arise over debts and payments. This is especially true with gambling.
An example comes from Kutaisi in 2007 when a large group of ‘members of the116thieves’ world’ were uncovered under the new anti-mafia legislation passed in 2005.
The case involved a group of criminals operating under the patronage of somequrdebi in Kutaisi racketeering betting shops and installing slot machines in locations
in various towns and extracting a cut of the profits (Kutaisi City Court 2008; R29;
R32). One of the activities was collecting the gambling debts owed. A creditor
struggling to convince a debtor to pay what is owed may turn to a qurdi to help withthe persuasion. The debtor on the other hand may similarly look for a qurdi’s services
if he cannot manage to pay the debt and feels threatened.
One of the obvious issues here is neutrality in decision-making, that is to say,the outcome may depend on whose qurdi steps in, or whose qurdi is more powerful.
Which qurdi disputing parties might turn to can also be in itself a cause for a dispute.
In other cases, the two parties ask their separate criminal authorities for help and thetwo qurdebi then settle the issue and inform the warring parties as to their decision.
Another outcome is for the creditor’s qurdi to deal with the issue solely by cancellingthe debt on the debtor’s behalf on the understanding that the debtor has now
transferred the debt in the form of an obligation to the qurdi who then effectively
becomes the debtor’s patron (R17). The qurdi in this case still owes the creditor,
though there is little the latter can do about it. It is unlikely that the qurdebithemselves will go to war over small disputes and even quarrels over bigger decisions
over territory and business can be resolved through nesting obligations that can becalled on and utilised (R18). Furthermore, disputes between qurdebi can be resolvedby the intervention of other qurdebi and the calling of a skhodka or thieves’ meeting(R22).
In the case of the Kutaisi group, wire-tapping was used to uncover those who
were racketeering the gambling shops and conducting informal debt collection. Some117

of the wire-taps were placed on the phones of criminal authorities who at the time
were inmates in Geguti prison near Kutaisi. The main decisions appear to come fromthe prison following discussions between the criminal authorities incarcerated there.
These inmates gave instructions to actors on the outside. The court records show avariety of individuals performing various duties including debt collection, resolutionof disputes of a fiscal and moral nature and protection of certain business interests
against other extortionists. The main topic of the conversations focuses on thecollection of debts owed and how this money can be extracted and to whom it shouldbe paid. There are discussions about setting up more businesses in other towns andwhich local criminal authorities should be contacted. It is clear that part of the money
taken through debt collection went to the communal qurdebi fund or obshchak: in one
instance $6,000 dollars is agreed to be paid (Kutaisi City Court 2008).
One of the main members of this criminal association operating in Kutaisi, D.,
was the relative of two prominent qurdebi who at the time were living in Moscow as
by 2007 most qurdebi had been arrested or had fled the country. In discussions
concerning protection money and conflicts over payment into the obshchak, thenames of these two qurdebi were used suggesting that they were also involved overlong distance in the activities of the group in Kutaisi. According to the court verdict(Ibid), ‘D. actively participated in the seizure of the amounts lost by different persons
during gambling. For this purpose, he used the underworld authority of his stepbrother…and his brother-in-law [both kanonieri qurdebi].’ D. might of course simply
have been playing off the reputation of his relatives to achieve his ends without theirreal involvement. In another case a debtor is informed that he must pay 3,100
Georgian lari (around $1,500) according to the decision of another famous qurdi
living in Russia by the nickname of Boxer. It is difficult to know whether these names

118are invoked as a way of strengthening the demand or if these famous qurdebi were infact involved in the racket. Someone calling the bluff of the group might find out.
The operations of this group of criminals were cut short in November 2007.
After lengthy surveillance work the police moved and 18 people were charged withbelonging to the thieves’ world and ‘engaging in racketeering and terrorizing local
businessmen’ (Lenta 2007).

5.2.4 Herbal Exports

Effectively resolving an issue for two parties is in all the qurdebi’s interests as
this is a good way of keeping business flowing and gaining information. Keeping a
reputation for effective dispute resolution can mean that parties to a transaction invite
a qurdi to settle it and in effect give up the details of their financial status. An
example of this from Kutaisi is instructive. In western Georgia there are fertile lands
for growing various types of agricultural produce, including herbs and greens such as
dill and tarragon. Two businessmen involved in the export of these herbs to themarket in Moscow got into a conflict over a payment of a substantial sum of money,$8,000, owed to one of them (R19). They turned to a qurdi K. for help resolving theissue. K. was happy to arbitrate for a percentage agreed upon beforehand but once thedispute was settled the businessmen had evidently not anticipated what would happen
next:‘K. asked them, sorry guys, but where are you making so much money from? andthey told him about their herb business  After that they found themselves paying $2
for every kilogram to the qurdebi  the qurdebi had no idea that people could makeso much money from herbs! But when you are dealing with tonnes of it going to119

Moscow to market and you are getting $2 per kilo, it turns out it’s not badbusiness…they controlled it here, at source in Kutaisi and on arrival in Moscow. It
worked out the qurdi here took $1 per kilo and another qurdi $1 per kilo in Moscow.’(R29)

This case reveals certain interesting features, firstly that the businessmen
turned to the qurdi to resolve their dispute, secondly, that dispute resolution evidently
is a mechanism for the qurdebi to collect information on businesses (an aspectemphasised by others, see Reuter 1985, ch. 7), thirdly, that once the businessmen
turned to the qurdebi, they had no choice but to allow them a regular share of the
profits, and, finally, that even though the business crossed borders the transplantationof the Georgian qurdebi to Russia (see chapters 7 & 8) meant they had no problem
dealing with the business at both ends. Though this looks like a case ofstraightforward extortion, we may suppose that the businessmen acquired some
service for this fee as it is now in the qurdebi’s interests both materially and in termsof reputation to make sure that the herbs are produced, exported and sold trouble-free.

5.3 The Qurdebi and Illegal Enterprises and Activities

The previous sections of the chapter gave examples of the functions of thequrdebi regarding legitimate businesses. Those activities often involved heading anorganised criminal group that worked on the behalf of a qurdi. This section considers
those examples that still utilise a criminal group but where there was no attempt toracketeer a legitimate legal entity such as a business. Instead the organised crimegroup makes profits through the straightforward commission of crime, and thequrdebi make profit from offering dispute resolution once the crime is committed. In
the two examples I give - kidnapping and car theft - individual people and personal
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property are targeted by a criminal group and the qurdebi offer dispute resolution andprotection services after the fact. Here then I distinguish the monopolisation of rackets
in legitimate industry from the monopolisation of a variety of illegal activities such as
car theft, armed robbery, burglary, drug dealing, prostitution, kidnapping andhijacking. This distinction may of course be quite blurred in reality. An activity suchas kidnapping may be used as a form of racketeering a legitimate firm. However, it
may also be employed as an activity in itself that can be monopolised and exploitedfor criminal profit without any further goal. It may also not only be organised crimegroups doing the kidnapping, as I discuss.

5.3.1 Kidnapping and Bride-Kidnapping

Unlike in Sicily where the mafia banned kidnapping due to the effect it had on
its client base (Gambetta 1993; Paoli 2003), in Georgia kidnapping became
widespread in the 1990s, not just by the qurdebi’s associates or unruly paramilitarygroups but also by the law enforcement agencies. In the early 2000s, extremely
controversial cases of businessmen being kidnapped and delivered to Chechen
militants in the Pankisi Gorge were uncovered and a prominent journalist killed forreporting on it (Lomsadze 2005). When UN workers went missing in the Kodori
Gorge in western Georgia the Georgian government turned to the prominent Kutaisi
qurdi Tariel Oniani to find those responsible and to negotiate the workers’ release,which he successfully was able to do. Perhaps his success was no accident; in somecases the kidnapping was organised by the qurdebi themselves and carried out by acriminal gang which then offers the services of the qurdi as a trusted intermediary toresolve the issue of ransom payment and safe release (R12).
121

The problem the kidnappers and the hostage face is essentially one of trust
where the issue at stake is guarantees about what will happen if ransom money is paid
and the hostage released (Gambetta 2009). The kidnappers need a commitment that if
they release the hostage he or she will not seek revenge through legal action or in any
other way. The hostage needs to know that if he or she pays the kidnappers they will
not kill him or her in any case to preclude future revenge now that they have themoney. A strong and authoritative intermediary can ensure the optimal solution forboth parties through enforcing agreements made, that is, insuring against defection at
a later date. In this way the kidnappers can get their money and have no further
repercussions of their actions, and the hostage manages to stay alive. The qurdebi
were able to fulfil this intermediary role, one that also offers protection in a sense. In
this case, the qurdi protects the ‘contract’ rights of the two parties involved after they
have made an agreement. Cases where a ransom is to be paid and release of thehostage assured provides an opportunity for the qurdebi to sell guarantees to bothparties to ensure against future defection on promises made.
In Georgia, there is another type of kidnapping, known as bride kidnapping,which again provides an opportunity for a third party intermediary with a reputation
for trustworthiness and a capacity for violent enforcement. This type of kidnapping is
a historical and social phenomenon involving a man or group of men taking a woman,hiding her somewhere and then claiming her as a wife. According to tradition thefamily of the woman has to agree to the marriage if the kidnapping is successful andthe woman herself has very little say. This practice was common in the Caucasus andCentral Asia until the Soviet period when the communists attempted to ‘uproot’ suchpractices. The resurgence of the practice in the 1990s is indicative of the failure ofthis policy (Kokhodze 2006). However, in Georgia, which had undergone decades of122

Soviet-driven modernisation, attitudes to the bride-kidnapping practice had changed
in some areas of society. It was the disconnection in the 1990s between theresurrection of an old mountain tradition and these new more progressive, often
urban, attitudes that created a niche for dispute resolution.
In the cases told by respondents the problem revolved round how to resolve abride kidnapping and prevent a recurrence of it from taking place (R1; R16). In one
case where a girl had been kidnapped by a young man, Shota, who was inclined
towards the thieves’ world the victim’s family invited the respective families and apolice officer they knew well to their house to mediate:‘The police officer assured us he would not arrest Shota, but actually this was nothing
to do with the law but because it happened to be at the family’s house and making anarrest at a friend’s house would be shameful. Shota was told to write and sign astatement agreeing that he would not attempt a further kidnapping…The parents I
think knew that Shota did not follow the same understandings [informal rules] as thepolice and a couple of days later they called another meeting and this time theybrought a qurdi who knew the family. This time Shota was told to give his word not toattempt any more kidnappings. The qurdi heard this and stated that if the agreement
was broken there would be consequences for Shota…however, Shota was known bysome powerful criminal authorities and I believe it would have been difficult to punish
him.’ (R1)

Both kidnapping and bride kidnapping then also provided a market for dispute
resolution. In the former case, once again, demand could be increased through the useof criminal groups doing the kidnapping in the first place precisely so a qurdi’s
mediation could be bought. The qurdi’s job was then to ensure an enforceableagreement to the liking of both parties. Having resolved the dispute the qurdi could
offer protection to stop a repeat of the kidnapping. In the case of bride kidnapping, itappears the qurdi’s job principally was to dissuade young men from further attempts
at stealing a bride after the fact.

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5.3.2 Car Theft

As in the case of the herbs in Kutaisi, dispute resolution could be an importantmechanism, inadvertently or otherwise, of collecting information on businessactivities in an area and knowing where demand might be strongest. Crime itself, bycreating insecurity, could bring people to use the qurdebi’s services and one crime inparticular often created a lot of work for them. This common dispute involves thestealing of cars. As mentioned in Chapter 4 this activity is performed by criminalgroups with links to the qurdebi who often do not try to sell the car on but simply‘kidnap’ it with the aim of returning it to its owner for a fee. Where respondents had
had some dealing with the qurdebi personally this was often due to a stolen car. In
many cases it was the victim who approached the qurdi in their locale, or someone
who knew the qurdi, in an effort to recover the car. In other cases, along the lines ofreal kidnapping, a phone call is made and the victim is made aware of potential
brokers who can arrange for their car to be returned. In one case a call was made to a
local government official informing him of the theft of his car. He was therefore
surprised to see his car still in the garage; evidently the gang responsible had not
identified the owner correctly (R40).
In cases where things run smoother the amount paid might depend on thevictims’ relationship with the qurdi, one respondent who was well-known to the local
qurdi settled with having just a car part – the CD player - taken as payment, and when
he complained he was met with the response that ‘the boys have to work forsomething!’ (R17) Other times a fee might be agreed. One respondent had his carstolen in Kutaisi in 1995 but he did not go to the police:124‘At that time you couldn’t rely on them [the police], they themselves just used thequrdebi to get things done…instead I turned to my friend…he had
contacts…Eventually he called and told me to meet him on a street near his
house…we waited and some cars pulled up…we went over and then when I looked
inside I recognised one of the guys, he was a qurdi….he asked me ‘have you talked at
all to the police?’ when I said I hadn’t this seemed to really satisfy him…he just said
‘good, you have no need to go to the police, just come to us, we can help you’…Afterthat the car was returned to me through my friend, but I lost $400.’ (R23)

In Zugdidi, the location of the town right next to the de-militarised zone with
Abkhazia facilitated hiding stolen cars easily by taking them across the heavily
guarded border. ‘Everyone takes stolen goods across the border, because no-one canget it back for you from there. The Georgian police have no jurisdiction there so they
can’t do anything, once its there it’s lost unless you have contacts’ (R22). In on case amini-bus had been stolen and taken to Gali across the border and the local Zugdidi
qurdi had agreed to get it back for a fee of $1,000 (R22).
Car theft also then appears to be an area where dispute resolution between thethieves and the owners is blurred with the more general sale of protection to stop thetheft occurring in the first place. Again, the qurdebi exploited their position as
criminal men of authority and could use criminal groups to increase demand for theirservices. The essence of these services, the sale of protection, had changed little since
Soviet times.

5.4 Conclusion

The last two chapters have shown that the qurdebi had a multiplicity of goals
and functions. However for definitional clarity and power these can be brought down
to a single essence: the provision of protection over a given territory. On this view thequrdebi are in essence a mafia. They may well engage in other non-mafia activities,
125such as legitimate business pursuits, but as long as they are also involved in theprovision of protection and claim some sort of dominion of the areas where they
provide this protection they may justifiable be seen as a mafia. This interpretation of
their activities sees the qurdebi as distortions of, but essentially similar to, both
enterprises and states: the mafia are market actors in the market for protection, butthey are also providing extra-legal governance, regulating disputes, extracting taxes
and claiming authority over areas of business and territory.
The mafia that existed prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union became one of
the many forms of extra-legal governance that were able to compete for influence
once the Soviet state collapsed. Rather than taking on a radically new form then, in
Georgia the traditional mafia, headed by the kanonieri qurdebi, adjusted andcontinued on. The last two chapters have argued that the presence of the qurdebi in
the Soviet and post-Soviet period can be explained using Varese’s (2001) model (seechapter 4) but that the basis for the unprotected nature of capitalist transactions in thetwo periods radically differed. Capitalism with a weak state appears to present more
opportunities to a mafia than a second economy in a strong socialist state. In the postSoviet period the size of the economy and society that was left unregulated exceeded
anything seen in the last days of communism. Demand for protection increased
accordingly and therefore the numbers of actors competing to provide this protection
was also fierce.
In terms of resilience, the activities of the qurdebi in the two periods provided
resources and sustenance, an important element of resilience (Tilly 2006). In fact, thequrdebi in the post-Soviet period should be seen as a growing force with increased
resources and a more diverse portfolio than ever before. However, while this would
have in principle increased resilience to exogenous shocks, it also affected other126factors that impact resilience, such as changes in external relations, internal relations
and commitment incentives and the boundaries of the trust network. I now take theseelements in turn in the following chapters beginning with external relations.

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6. Predators: the Qurdebi and the State before andafter the Rose Revolution“Our main export to Russia is not wine but kanonieri qurdebi.”Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, April 2009

The forerunner of the KGB, the OGPU, released Directive 108/65 on 8th
March 1931, stating the need for the prison system to attract class-related proletarians
and peasants who could then pressure ‘alien’, meaning political, elements in the
Gulag (Emel’yanov 2006). Whether or not this document is the smoking gun thatproves the involvement of the Soviet secret services in the creation of the fraternity ofthe thieves-in-law, popular perception and some scholarly studies (Tevzadze n.d) holdthis as an incontrovertible fact. The Bolsheviks had been willing to use criminals fortheir own ends prior to the revolution of 1917 (Montefiore 2007) and this fact lends
these claims some credibility. On this view, in return for help and cooperation inpressuring the politicals, thieves-in-law from the very beginning received privileges in
the prison and outside it. Indeed, the police and qurdebi have been characterised as‘natural allies’ (R7).
Whether true or not, such opinions create speculation over other aspects of theinstitution of the thieves-in-law. Perhaps the ‘in-law’ part of their name comes fromtheir actual respect for state law? Why is the oath that was sworn on becoming a thief-128in-law so similarly worded and structured as the oath taken by those joining theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union (Oleinik 2003 p. 70)? Whatever the truth of thematter, from the very inception of the thieves-in-law the issue of the role of the stateis present and this chapter is, at base, concerned with these relations.
The chapter also deals with the dynamic and sweeping changes to the criminal
justice system that occurred after the Rose Revolution in 2003 and the coming topower of Mikhail Saakashvili and his United National Movement party. The reforms
that were implemented specifically targeted the kanonieri qurdebi and appear to havebeen the result of a process of anti-mafia policy transfer particularly from Italy.
Saakashvili, an American-educated lawyer and former Justice Minister, madecriminal justice reform a priority of the post-revolution government. The government
pushed through a raft of legislation combining anti-mafia laws with police and prison
reform and a grassroots ‘culture of lawfulness’ campaign.
The main purpose of the chapter is to frame the reforms of the Rose
Revolution against the backdrop of the links between the kanonieri qurdebi and thestate in the time leading up to the revolution. This is vital for understanding the issuesof resilience and adaptation with regards to the qurdebi as any trust network’s ability
to survive depends on defending its resources and sustenance from predators andsurviving the exogenous shocks wrought by stronger actors, in this case the state.
Firstly, I discuss how other scholars have thought through the issue of state-organised
crime connections and layout Tilly’s (2006) approach to state-trust network relations.
Using this latter approach I, secondly, look at these relations in communist times,
before thirdly, looking at the post-Soviet period, and finally discussing the Rose
Revolution and the shape of relations between the qurdebi and the state in the present
day.

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6.1 Predation, Organised Crime and Trust Networks

For Tilly (2006), states and trust networks interact strategically with eachother and employ varying techniques depending on their respective size and strength.
When possible, the state will go after the resources of trust networks. As Tilly writes,‘over the long historical run trust networks’ most persistent and effective predators
have been duly constituted government agents who were just doing their jobs.’ (Tilly
2006, p. 86). Thus, the state may try to destroy trust networks but it may also try to
co-opt them. Tilly suggests that there are three modes of control open to the state as
regards trust networks. These exist on a continuum. They are:- facilitation- toleration- repression (Tilly 2006, p. 104-105).

The actors in a trust network in their turn may employ their own ‘bottom up’
strategies to counter this. Tilly identifies seven such strategies, these strategies are:1. predatory behaviour itself by the trust network;
2. concealment and simply hiding from the unwanted attention of the
predator;
3. clientage or protection through the use a patron;
4. dissimulation or feigning conformity whilst continuing on regardless.
5. enlistment onto the side of the predator;
1306. bargaining for direct and unmediated patronage with political actors;
7. dissolution of the network with or without the intention of resurrection in
the future (Tilly, 2006 chapter 2 & p. 104).

Tilly identifies three levels of integration as possible outcomes of the top
down and bottom up strategies between the state and trust networks:- segregation from the state;- negotiated connection to the state;- full integration with the state.

Segregation would include such phenomena as secretive religious sects andmonastic orders, while full integration includes the likes of pirates who become
privateers, or private militias that are incorporated into state armies. The middle level,
the common outcome of negotiated connection, refers to either patronage relations
utilising middle level patrons in state institutions or brokered autonomy where rights
and recognition of the trust network are provided for. Of the latter, Tilly gives theexample of Jewish diaspora groups in southern Europe that were granted quarters incities and autonomy from the local rulers.
Mafias make good case studies for observing such strategies. Fundamentally
this is due to the fact that the state and mafia compete for the same resources, theextraction of material tribute from society in return for the provision of protection(Tilly 1985; Reuter 1985; Poggi 1990; Skaperdas & Syropoulos 1995). Studies ofmafias in different parts of the world and at different times have employed a range ofTilly’s (2006) bottom up strategies in negotiating an essentially competitive131

relationship with the state. For example, the Yakuza appear to practice dissimulationin their engagement with the Japanese political machine, openly operating bygovernment rules and filling in for the state where the government has wilfully given
up authority yet surely still ready to use lethal violence in pursuit of its goals(Millhaupt & West 2000; Hill 2006).
Mafias have been defined by reference to their manipulation of state actors
through corruption (Anderson 1995). In Sicily, ties between mafia and statethroughout the 1980s appeared to employ a bargaining strategy with top-level
politicians, a breach in the terms of which Cosa Nostra violently sanctioned when, in
the 1990s, political results threatened the status quo (Jamieson 2000; Orlando 2001;
Schneider & Schneider 2003). A similar situation existed in America. Jacobs et al(2001, p. 130) write that in New York:‘[A] symbiotic relationship between organised crime and the urban politicalmachines insulated Cosa Nostra from sustained law enforcement investigations. That,at least, was the conclusion of the US Senate’s 1950-1951 Kefauver Committee,
whose hearings revealed friendly relationships between organised crime bosses andmayors, police chiefs, and politicians in many cities.’

Finally, whilst not fully-fledged mafias, Jankowski’s (1991) study ofAmerican urban gangs shows strategies of clientage, dissimulation, and evenenlistment - for example, in helping get out the vote for local politicians in return forfavours - in negotiating the threat from the state.
However, mafias and states should be disaggregated as actors. Hill (2006)
prefers to frame state-Yakuza ties as pragmatic, quid pro quo, and strategic, rather
than as overarching policies of monolithic entities in interaction with each other (Hill
2006, chap. 7). Hill argues that, whether the mafia employs clientage with mid-level
actors or bargains with main players in the political establishment, such relationships

132between mafias and the state were not necessarily all-pervasive but in many cases
limited to pragmatic arrangements by small groups or individuals at different levels. If
widespread enough, pragmatic ties between state representatives and the mafia could
aggregate to a state-level reluctance to implement anti-mafia policies, though such a
process would also appear to be mediated to a large degree by other macro-levelprocesses such as state strength, available resources and the ideological positioning ofcollective political actors such as parties.
For example, where the state is not strong enough to maintain a full monopolyon taxation, accommodation with the mafia might occur. In this case an agreement
can be beneficial to both parties that might take the form of patronage or brokered
autonomy for the mafia in their own territory (Celentini 1995a). Moreover, the statemight calculate that an aggressive anti-mafia campaign might create a confrontationor push organised crime into other fields incurring greater costs than an ongoing
toleration of the mafia’s presence would (Celentini et al. 1995b). Thus, the cost
incurred by the presence of the mafia must be weighed against the costs and benefitsof an anti-mafia campaign.
I will argue below that while the kanonieri qurdebi do not possess amechanism for implementing an overarching and uniform strategy amongst theirmembers, certain trends can be observed as regards the employment of Tilly’s bottom
up strategies in interacting with the state. These have been most primarily predationon the state itself, clientage, and bargaining. For its part, the state, depending on thetime period, has either attempted to destroy the qurdebi, or has reached compromises
resulting in negotiated connection or integration into the state. Taken very generally,
the later Soviet period appears to represent a period of clientage and negotiatedconnection through patronage of localised state actors. In contrast, the post-Soviet

133period represents a time when the qurdebi were able to bargain with political actors
and integrate in sectors of the state and economy to the extent that these existed
during this transitional period. Finally, the period following the Rose Revolution andthe wholesale state attack on organised crime has led to a reorientation towards
predation as resistance to the state, concealment and dissimulation.

6.2 Mafia and State in the Later Soviet Period: Clientage and
Negotiated Connection

Developing the insights from the above discussion I now return to the
Georgian case. Here I start by looking at the relationship between the state and the
kanonieri qurdebi before the Rose Revolution, with the intent of revealing thestrategies of the state and qurdebi in relation to each other and the outcomes of‘segregation,’ ‘negotiated connection’ or ‘integration’.
As has been shown, (chapter 4) the qurdebi were active in the Soviet second
economy. In terms of the relationship between the qurdebi and the state, during thisSoviet period a pattern appears to form where first secretaries are appointed as leadersof the republic and straightaway implement crime control measures that affect thequrdebi. As noted in chapter 4, Shevardnadze’s time at the head of the Georgian
Soviet Republic (1972-1985) began with hard-hitting anti-crime and corruption
policies and high profile arrests. Kukhianidze (2008, p. 220) argues that
Shevardnadze’s drive did push the qurdebi out of Georgia to other republics. ‘This
campaign was carried out in a very Soviet manner: police warned the thieves that if

134they did not leave Georgia within one month then they would be jailed under different
pretexts – drugs or illegal possession of weapons.’ This statement itself implies thatthe police and thieves were in some sort of contact in order to be able to communicate
this threat. It also alludes to the deficiencies in the Soviet criminal code in dealing
with ‘group crime’. Though the charge of ‘recidivism’ could be added to a conviction
and sanctions increased, the Soviet authorities did not readily acknowledge theexistence of organised crime and therefore qurdebi were convicted for related crimes
such as illegal firearm possession or catch-all crimes such as hooliganism (AOCU-T
2004; Backman 2000).
Like Shevardnadze before him, Jumber Paatiashvili, the new First Secretary ofGeorgia in 1985 also cracked down on crime, arresting many qurdebi and utilising theSoviet prison archipelago by sending many qurdebi incarcerated in Georgia elsewherein the Soviet Union. Former prison workers from both Tbilisi and Kutaisi madereference to this time period. ‘We had 1,800 people [in Geguti prison near Kutaisi]
then. In 1985 we had 12 qurdebi, but exactly at that time they decided to send themout of Georgia’ (R25). Serio & Razinkin (1994, p. 2) state that by 1986 in Georgia 56
qurdebi had been imprisoned on the basis of a variety of minor crimes. Furthermore,in an echo of what was to happen in 2004, ‘the Central Committee made it clear that
officials failing to carry out the assignment would be treated as law breakers
themselves and dealt with accordingly’ (Ibid, p.2).20
In 1987, the Central Committee noted the effectiveness of this policy of
exiling the qurdebi in the increasing the work done by prisoners, noting that a 1985
Resolution of the Central Committee on discipline and legality in the correctional
labour camps of Georgia and the intensified struggle with ‘thievish elements’ had led
20

A report (ESI 2010) claims that a similar threat was made in 2004 regarding the tolerance of thequrdebi by local law enforcement.

135to an improvement in the situation and an increase in those prisoners put to work from
85.2% to 95.4% with an increased output from 58.6 million to 73 million rubles (PA,
14/128/143).
Crime control policies at the republic-level do not however give the full
picture. Under communism, being tough on crime and ‘negative tendencies’21 wasrhetoric that pleased overlords in Moscow without necessarily having huge effects in
Georgian society or on state-mafia relations once we disaggregate these actors(Rotiashvili 2002; see chapter 4). Shelley (2007, p. 53) states that the 1970s-1980s
anti-crime and corruption drives ‘did more for the promotion of Shevardnadze’s
career than the elimination of this deep seated phenomenon in Georgian society.’
Indeed, other archival sources from the Paatiashvili period suggest that thepolice maintained links with qurdebi. For example, a report made to the Central
Committee by a high-ranking police official in 1986 stated explicitly:‘It’s been said many times and I want again to declare it, that the main dereliction in
our work has been the ineffectiveness in the struggle with those who maintain thethieves’ traditions, some of our officers relate to these scum with a special respectand even fear. Exactly because of this these elements easily create for themselves“irreproachable authority” becoming figures to be emulated for some unstable young
people, drawn towards committing crime.’ (PA, 14/127/330/16)

This view had been expressed in 1985 at the Union level: ‘Some of them[thieves-in-law], through bribery and blackmail, have established criminal contacts
with individual workers in the internal security structures, penetrated into theespionage agencies, extracted cover documents – certificates of disability and mental
illness.’ (MVD-A, 0033/1985/2-3)

21This was a term which often denoted corruption or illegal second economy activity.

136

Despite the fact that the thieves’ law explicitly stated that members of thefraternity should have no contact with the authorities, it is clear that in the later Soviet
period there was close contact between prison governors and the qurdebi. Suchprisons were known as ‘black prisons’ which were controlled by the qurdebi incontradistinction to ‘red prisons’ which were free of qurdebi influence. According to
one former governor (R20; see also Prison Service 2006):‘Governors of prisons received some sort of salary from the obshchak every month. If
a governor was receiving such money then he certainly wasn’t actually governing
anything and the last word rested with those who gave him the money – that means,the qurdebi. And if we compare the word of the governor with the word of thecriminal authority…the word of the qurdebi was much stronger…there were of course
governors who didn’t allow such a situation but they were very few.’

Some respondents emphasised here the personal and familiar element ofconnections with the qurdebi, even sympathy for the qurdebi they knew and had aworking relationship with:‘[One] qurdi, he was my qurdi and I helped him. I made excuses to the prison
governor. Because at that time [the 1980s] there was such an understanding – bettermy qurdi than your qurdi. You reached an understanding, it was mutual eventrusting…it would be worse to have other qurdebi in your prison who you were notacquainted with.’ (R25)

Similarly, interviews with serving and former police officers suggest that
relationships between the police and the qurdebi could be cordial, but were often
based on personal familiarity.

‘[Qurdebi] had friendly and personal relations with the police. We knew each otherand they could use this to protect their own backs. And for us the qurdebi could help
with solving a crime…The qurdebi…had to purge their own ranks in order to get rid

137

of some members because they were suspected of collusion [with the police]. And how
did they do that? Usually by selling out the suspected person to the police! So what
did collusion mean for them anyway?’ (R2)This statement is indicative of the pragmatic use of the thieves’ own code ofhonour for making accusations against rivals combined with the repressive apparatusof the state in order to jockey for position amongst the thieves themselves (Chalidze
1977; R10). It also points to a quid pro quo strategic interaction between the police
officials and the qurdebi based on already existing social and personal ties between
individual police officers or prison workers and qurdebi or their representatives.
Other respondents also alluded to this (R4, R12).
Such statements also cast doubt on the lingering suspicion that the qurdebi andthe police’s relationship during Soviet times went beyond mere cooperation or mutual
respect to a deep-rooted conspiracy in creating and maintaining social control outsideof prison (Tevzadze n.d.). This view gets aired as fact in an international NGO report:‘promoting state-paid criminals to the status of heroes allowed the Soviet authorities
one inroad into a population long suspicious of state powers’ (Godson et al. 2003, p.
10). The idea here is that the qurdebi were ‘planted’ in particularly sociallydisorganised areas such as inner city areas and worked tightly with the police (R16).
However, the testimony of respondents paints a picture in which the qurdebi
conducted clientage on a micro level with individuals while aspects of the state
tolerated and made use of their existence, occasionally repressing them due topolitical expediency. This pragmatism in relations between the qurdebi and the statecontinued into the 1990s. However, with Georgia entering its ‘time of troubles’(Zurcher 2006) it became difficult to speak of a state at all and the opportunistic,
situational relations between the now demoralised law enforcement, political actors
and the qurdebi came more fully out into the open.

1386.3 Clientage, Bargaining and Integration with State Structures in
the 1990s

Whereas in the 1980s the qurdebi trust network had been prey for the state,by the 1990s the qurdebi were also one of the competing elements in society for theassets of the state. Moreover, the qurdebi were able to bargain more directly forpolitical patronage at this time than in the past. The new government, led once again
by Shevardnadze, had to grant special privileges to power groups inside and outsideof the state (Christophe 2004). Kukhianidze (2008, p. 220) reports that:‘Between 1991-2003, criminalization of the government was a very serious
problem…“Thieves-in-law” who controlled shadow businesses through their nexus
with corrupt government officials, used the widespread practice of penetration into
the parliament of Georgia. This protected their illegal businesses through the
adoption of corrupt laws and by “capturing” the state.’

Similarly, Darchiashvili (2006) found that, ‘there are cases when so-called “vory-vzakone” review the results of certain elections. Some political leaders during theirelection campaigns visit them in their various corners of Georgia for support.’
Stefes (2006, p. 20) grounds the possibility for such state capture in thesystemic and decentralised corruption that emerged in Georgia through the collapse of
the previously centralised system of corruption under communism. The fragmentationof state authority meant that ‘coalitions of local and regional officials and crimegroups successfully captured key economic sectors and undermined the formation offormal state and market institutions’ (Stefes 2006 p. 35). Organised criminals in
Georgia offered a specialisation in violence in suppressing market competition for139

well-connected entrepreneurs and former nomenklatura. In return for such services
criminals acquired shares in businesses and infiltrated the state and economy (Stefes
2006, p. 83).
The bottom up strategies of the qurdebi trust network in the post-Soviet period
resembled the use of bargaining for the right of recognition to openly participate in
the economy and political life through development of horizontal rather than vertical,
ties. Wheatley (2005, p. 80) writes that at this time local, former communist elites not
only co-existed with criminal groupings but also began to offer access to politicalresources. This period then appears to represent a time of greater integration of thequrdebi with the remnants of the Georgian state than during communist times. Thisshould be qualified however. This is also a time when the number of qurdebi also
likely increased (see chapter 8) and not all of them necessarily made contacts in the
Georgian state and economy. Many had already left the country having foundthemselves preyed upon in the post-Soviet period to a greater extent than during thecommunist times due to an unruly Ministry of the Interior and uncontrollable
paramilitary groups (see chapter 7).
Indeed, the threat to the free operation of the qurdebi in Georgia in the 1990s
was not from a concerted onslaught of state legislation and ideologically driven crime
control directives as it had been under communism.22 Instead the threat of predationon the qurdebi trust network came from dysfunctional, localised remnants of a once
burgeoning governmental security apparatus now unfettered by central authority andideological constraint. Furthermore, there were increased pressures from other groups
such as paramilitary formations such as Mkhedrioni. Evidently, as I discuss below,

22

There was, of course, legislation intended to deal with organised criminal activities such as extortionand the creation of armed groups but conviction and incarceration rates were low at this time and there
was no coherent anti-organised crime policy as such.

140many qurdebi were still practising clientage through buying off local police chiefs tobe protected in case of conflict and left alone otherwise.
Akin to other processes, the clientage between the qurdebi and the police
appears to have become more open in the 1990s. With the collapse of state capacity
and continuing lack of legitimacy for state structures, different departments of thepolice, such as the transport police, became trust networks in the their own rightcompeting with criminal groups headed by the qurdebi in extracting rents from the
population. ‘The police force in Georgia would itself come to resemble a large,
centralised mafia-type organisation’ (Wheatley, quoted in Stefes 2006, p. 108). In thissense, the police could be the ultimate krysha or protection racket for the qurdebi.
A pre-Rose Revolution report (Darchiashvili & Nodia 2003) on the ‘power
structures’ in Georgia stated that with Kakha Targamadze in charge of the Ministry of
the Interior from 1995-2000 the ‘ministry was associated with the cigarette businessand the control of retail and wholesale markets; its powers even extended to the oil
business and other fields of commerce….during the first half of 2001, only 27.3 percent of the petrol consumed was taxed’ (2003, p.12). As argued previously (chapter 5)
the qurdebi were also involved in areas such as wholesale markets and petrol stations
suggesting that they either worked with the police or came to an arrangement inmaintaining competing business interests including funnelling up a cut of illicit
business proceeds to the police. Indeed, one local analyst (Darchiashvili 2006, p. 109)
reported that in the year 2002, ‘evidence indicates that the police, subordinated to the
Ministry of Interior, has been continuing to tolerate the thieves-in-law and evencooperated with its representatives upon reception of regularly paid “taxes”’.
Respondents from the security sector concurred with this statement suggestingthat the police had been patrons for criminals in the 1990s. ‘Obshchak [communal

141

fund] money went to the police - a tax was paid to the local police chief in order to act
freely without fear of prosecution’ (R6). In Zugdidi in Western Georgia, ‘the qurdebi
paid them [the police] tax, it was $5,000 if a qurdi wanted to come here from Moscow
for example and not be touched. There was a makarubeli [overseer] who collected
money [in Zugdidi] right, so they used the money for this purpose. If a qurdi wascoming here they would straightaway pay the police off’ (R22). The relationship was
mainly with the higher echelons of the local police departments however. ‘As
operational officers you couldn’t touch them [the qurdebi]. I had that experience inTbilisi, it didn’t matter if you had something on one of them, they always had
someone protecting them further up the police hierarchy…I was an officer from 1997
to 2004 and it was the higher rungs who were taking the payments’ (R29).
A similar process of payment to administrators of prisons also took place inthe 1990s up to the Rose Revolution. According to one prison governor, ‘money wascollected in the prison and outside of the prison as well, for the obshchak…Oncemoney was collected and delivered to the prison…50% would go to theadministration and the other half was taken by the makarubeli on the inside’ (R26).
The qurdebi used contact with the prison administration to get luxuries. In January of
2003, Ortachala Prison no. 5 in Tbilisi was raided including the cells of kanonieri
qurdebi. Knives, Kalashnikovs, hand-grenades, mobile phones and drugs wereconfiscated (Novikov 2003). The qurdebi were able to live in much greater comfort
on the inside:‘Concerning those facilities, colonies as they are called, it wasn’t a jail but an opentype facility with living quarters for prisoners, with big rooms where they keep 120
people, when kanoneri qurdebi where in such facilities they never turned up in the big
dormitories they had their own separate cell that they themselves did up, and what
they had, you can say, was like an office much better than that of the governor.’ (R20)142

In return for such luxuries, the qurdebi helped keep control of the prison:‘Imagine in the prison there is a riot, the governor will ask the qurdi, what’s going on
there? The qurdi will say, right you whores, get back in your cells, you are upsetting
my position here…if he can’t calm the situation down, his position is lost. They won’t
let his wife come visit next time, or let him go for a walk.’ (R18)

In the 1990s prison governors felt it was in their interests to use the qurdebi
not least because of their small wages:‘[Turning to the qurdebi for help] happened. There was such a case, even a few times.
What could we do? People weren’t even getting a wage some of the time, theprisoners if they start rioting who’s going to risk anything when they don’t even get a
wage? And it took a lot to bring in special forces.’ (R21)

In summary some, though clearly not all, in the qurdebi trust network
achieved tighter integration in the 1990s, others maintained a negotiated connection to
the state based on a clientage strategy. In this period there was toleration andfacilitation of the trust network by key state actors based on apparent commitment toeach other. Integration between the state and the qurdebi was clearly on display aslate as 2003 when the Georgian government’s plenipotentiary in the Kodori Gorge
utilised its connections with the qurdebi to rescue UN workers being held hostage,these connections were unashamedly reported by government representatives(Devdariani 2003). By this point the Shevardnadze government had started to become
uneasy about the level of influence these criminal actors possessed. When Saakashvili
broke with Shevardnadze in 2001 to eventually become one of the most important
authors of the Rose Revolution a backlash against the qurdebi was soon to come.

1436.4 Anti-Mafia and the Rose Revolution

According to key respondents (R39, R7), the anti-mafia policies implemented
in Georgia in 2005 were outright ‘cut and paste’ copies of legislation from othercountries. In particular, the US’s 1970 Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organisations
Act (RICO) was influential in the drawing up of legislation in Georgia. There are also
clear replications of measures brought in by the Italian Anti-Mafia Commission,
particularly Emergency Decree Law 306/8 of June 1992 that built on existing antimafia law 416bis, that were intended to seriously hinder mafia activities after theassassinations of the Judges Falcone and Borsellino at the hands of Cosa Nostra(Jamieson 2000). Lesson drawing from other jurisdictions was carried out throughkey advisors including a general prosecutor from the US, and major figures in theanti-mafia Sicilian Renaissance movement, most primarily former Palermo mayor
Leoluca Orlando and Roy Godson of the National Strategy Information Center(NSIC), a think tank that had thought out a ‘culture of lawfulness’ programme basedon the Sicilian experience of fighting the mafia.
Orlando was especially receptive to Georgians having twinned Tbilisi with
Palermo and spent a period in Soviet Georgia in the 1980s when he had fled Sicily
due to a threat to his life.23 During his time there he noted cultural and historicalsimilarities between Sicily and Georgia and wrote about his affection for the people in
his autobiography (Orlando 2001, p. 136): ‘also a cocktail of different races andcultures, Georgia was in many ways similar to Sicily.’ From 2001, Orlando and other23

Orlando (2001) writes that his relationship with Georgia began when he discovered one of the firstgrammars of the Georgian language in a Palermo archive that had been written centuries earlier by aPalermitan monk.

144prominent anti-mafia leaders from Sicily conducted exchange visits between Palermo
and Tbilisi. The transfer from Italy was a process of lesson-drawing and emulation(Rose 1991; Dolowitz & March 2000). The main element taken by the Georgian
administration was that reforms had to be implemented in unison. This was Orlando’s
key message. His often repeated metaphor of the two-wheeled cart, one wheel
representing social, political and cultural reform, the other police and judicial reform,
that must move together, received an enthusiastic reception in Tbilisi (Orlando 2001,
p. 10-11; Schneider & Schneider 2003, p.160).
Below, I will briefly discuss those elements of the policy that directly impact
on the discussion of the kanonieri qurdebi. These are: the anti-mafia legislation itself,
the reform of the police and renewed trust in law enforcement, and a grassroots‘culture of lawfulness’ campaign that centred on educational reform. The argument
followed here suggests that firstly, the speed and nature of the legislation itself wereeffective in not allowing the qurdebi to adapt. Secondly, the police reform and generalanti-corruption drive within the state and political circles cut off the possibility ofcontinuing with clientage and bargaining strategies to gain patronage, as had been
done in the past. Thirdly, educational reforms have been important in drying up the
potential recruitment pool to the thieves’ world. Finally however, it is emphasised that
other strategies of survival from predation are available, namely retaliatory predation,
concealment, and dissimulation.

6.4.1 Anti-Mafia Legislation

145

On December 20, 2005, Mikheil Saakashvili signed into force the Law on
Organised Crime and Racket. This introduced slang terms, such as kanonieri qurdebi,
obshchak, garcheva, skhodka, and qurduli samkaro that had been used for decades in
the criminal underworld into Georgian criminal law. This law, article 223 of thecriminal code, states: ‘1. membership of the thieves’ world [qurduli samkaro] ispunishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of 5 to 8 years…2. Being a thief-in-law[kanonieri qurdi] is punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of 7 to 10 years’(Prosecution Service 2006). The thieves’ world is defined as a group of people who
act on special orders defined/recognised by them with the aim of gaining profit
through intimidation, threats, force, the promise of silence, or criminal dispute
resolution (garcheva), that seeks the involvement of juveniles and encourages
criminal acts by others. A member of this world is someone who recognises thecriminal authorities and seeks to achieve the goals of the thieves’ world. ‘Criminal
handling’ or dispute resolution is the settlement of a dispute between two or moreparties by a member of the thieves’ world that can employ threats, force andintimidation. Finally a kanonieri qurdi or thief-in-law is defined as a member of thethieves’ world who administers this world and organises activities in accordance withthe rules recognised by the members (Prosecution Service 2006, p. 12). Therefore, theprosecution of a qurdi is not only based on the recognised fact of someone being a
qurdi but, in principle at least, also on them committing actions such as organising or
issuing directives for criminal acts.
Furthermore, article 37 of the code of criminal procedure states the right of theprosecutor to request the confiscation of property if there is reason to believe that theproperty was obtained through a racket or through membership of the thieves’ world(Prosecution Service 2006, p. 13). This is considered one of the most important pillars

146

of the anti-mafia legislation as, in principle, it is designed to take away the materialbase of organised criminals (R12, R44). Along with these developments, plea
bargaining was also introduced into the legal system initially to collect information
and uncover high level cases of corruption and also to give an opportunity to theaccused to pay back embezzled money to the state in return for lighter sentences. It
has also been used in the attack on the qurdebi (R7).
The speed of the legislation caught the qurdebi that were left in Georgia by
surprise; they were seemingly unaware of the content of the legislation and the danger
that admitting to their status could be used against them in court (R43). The thieves’own code of honour dictated that to deny one’s status was a serious breach that could
be sanctioned by expulsion from the fraternity. In adapting to this unique piece oflegislation some believe the qurdebi have relaxed the rules and can refuse to answer
whether they are a qurdi or not (Prosecution Service, p. 14). Those close to thequrdebi such as relatives and associates also became guarded about commenting on
who was a qurdi. However, in one case, this behaviour was met with anger by thequrdi in question, who was in exile in Russia, as he believed it was dishonourable todeny his status regardless of the punishment that could be meted out and duly told his
associates to make it quite clear what his status was (R30).
The policy led to the imprisonment of around 30-40 qurdebi and many more‘associates’. As early as April 2006, the general prosecutor was declaring that therewas ‘not one qurdi left in freedom’ (Lenta 2006) The tacit contract between thequrdebi and the state established prior to 2003 had been broken by the passing andimplementation of the new laws. The state was no longer facilitating or tolerating thequrdebi but using out and out repressive tactics based on the coercive apparatus of thecriminal justice system. One analyst summarises that: ‘Georgian “thieves-in-law” are,147

without exception, either serving their sentences in the Georgian prisons or fugitives
in other countries. They failed to weather the anti-criminal policies of the Georgian
government and lost their image as “untouchables”. Moreover they lost their longstanding control and influence in the prisons’ (Kukhianidze 2008, p. 130).
These apparent successes do need some qualification regarding theimplementation of policies. For example, while confiscation of property is appealing
as it adds an extra source of revenue for the state budget, ‘it is important that seizure
provisions are framed in such a way as to prevent the law-enforcement community
behaving effectively as bounty hunters’ (Hill 2006, p. 154). In Georgia, some suspect
the overriding need to find money to start rebuilding the state was the primary motiveof the criminal justice reforms. According to Areshidze (2007, p. 215) the
confiscation of property and the demand for all embezzled money to be paid back tothe state was used as a pretext for extortion: ‘the government was terrorizing its own
citizens…this tactic was not very different from a mobster.’ This suggests that whileanti-mafia policies work in transparent and accountable police forces in Europe andAmerica once they are transferred to still relatively opaque repressive post-Soviet
institutions, equipping them with extraordinary powers, worrying developments canoccur in the implementation stage. However, from the security sector’s point of view,
the ability to side-step apparently annoying procedural requirements or ignore
internationally prescribed norms might also be seen as adding to the effectiveness of
attacking allegedly dangerous criminals who have no recourse to question theirtreatment.

6.4.2 Police and Prison Reform148

In remaking the relationship between the state and the qurdebi, perhaps thebiggest obstacle was the problem of corruption in criminal justice institutions and thehigh regard that had been mentioned back in the 1980s that some police held thequrdebi in. As the Prosecution Service (2006 p. 14) stated: ‘the most difficult problem
was the influence of the criminal authorities over the law enforcement structures. In
recent years there were even incidents when a thief-in-law was threatening theofficers of the criminal investigation department with dismissal from office.’
Reforming the police and the prisons was therefore a big priority. Reforms began as
early as 2004 and were carried out with international assistance from Europe andAmerica (Boda & Kakachia 2006). The main structural changes were within the
Ministry of the Interior. Overall the Ministry was reduced in size from 40,000
employees to round 17,000 (Hiscock 2006). Around 15,000 old police personnel were
fired; this was over half the nation’s police (Kukhianidze 2006). In place of the oldpolice new people were brought in by means of a competitive recruitment system.
The police now number 14,500 with a police to civilian ratio of 1:324. At the time of
the Rose Revolution this ratio had been an incredible 1:78 (Kupatadze et al. 2007, p.
94).
The police were given new uniforms and their salaries raised. A police
academy was set up. The old anti-organised crime and terrorism unit was reinvented
and re-staffed as the Special Operations Department (SOD) with responsibility forinvestigating organised crime and the qurdebi. The infamous Soviet era institution of
the Traffic Police who numbered some 2,700 men and acted as highway robbers
throughout the country was disbanded (Kukhianidze 2006). A new Patrol Police
replaced them. This new force took on responsibilities for order on the streets as wellas traffic control. They were given new German cars and Israeli guns and investment

149

was made in police stations, equipment and information technology. A six week
training program was created to verse new recruits in criminal law and the criminal
procedural code as well as administrative and physical training (Khinitibidze 2006).24
There have been significant gains made due to these reforms. One survey
shows an incredible 75% of the public in 2006 to be satisfied with the police, up from
32% in 2000. This figure decreases to below 50% however for those who haveactually used the police services (Bonvin 2006). Still, these figures are more in linewith Western Europe and higher than the Central and Eastern Europe area which has
a median 32% satisfaction level with the police (Caparini & Marenin 2005).
Similarly, subjective feelings of insecurity have decreased since 2000 and perceived
levels of corruption are much lower: 80% thought the police corrupt in 2000
compared to just 24.6% in 2006 (Bonvin 2006). The results have been positive, ‘what
has been done so far gives a basis to suggest that [reform of the law enforcement
system] will bring about the normalisation of the criminogenic situation in the
country’ (Kukhianidze 2006).
It was vital to distance the police from the qurdebi and to create trust in
government security structures. The question is one of faith and confidence in the newpolice to deliver; ‘as long as the Georgian police fail to inspire trust, the thieves may
well retain some of their past influence’ (DiPuppo 2006). Thus, the Interior Ministerat the time of the new legislation, Gia Baramidze, threatened police chiefs of any
region that still had qurdebi operating in it within the month, with the sack (ESI2010). Symbolism was also an important element in this. Baramidze’s successor,

24

Other attempts to create a more democratic police force include the demilitarisation of the Border
Police, moving the state’s Interior Troops to the Ministry of Defence, and the Ministry of the Interior’s
decentralisation with regional headquarters given more independence. Lastly, a Financial Police wasalso established in the Ministry of Finance. These changes occurred simultaneously with strict
oversight mechanisms such as the umbrella organisation, the National Police Directorate, to prevent
corrupt practices in the Patrol, Criminal and Security Police from taking root.

150

Vano Merabishvili proclaimed at the beginning of the campaign against the qurdebi
that, ‘we will confiscate from all thieves-in-law [kanonieri qurdebi] the palaces theybuilt with their dirty money, and put police stations in their place’ (Gerzmava et al2007). New police stations in the big, former houses of qurdebi now dominate the
districts of Georgia’s towns.
The police reform precluded individual qurdebi from employing a clientage
strategy to protect themselves from the new wave of attack by the central government.
Similarly, the penitentiary department adopted reforms along the lines of the police
reform, removing the once tight relationship between the prison administration andthe qurdebi. Some prisons had an 80% turnover of staff, and salaries were raised 200300% (R42). In January 2006, a process of removing kanonieri qurdebi from the restof the prison population began. The Georgian government now holds qurdebi in a
separate prison, no. 7, in Tbilisi, with much curtailed rights to visits, phone calls andmail. These measures appear to be copies of article 41 bis of the Italian penal code.
All prison governors that had relations with the qurdebi previously were dismissed(Prison Service 2006 p. 13). A rigorous recruitment process was implemented. The
clientage practised by the qurdebi previously was broken off. As one prison governor
put it: ‘Before they could get anything in, drugs, women, phones, it was all possible
the prison was absolutely corrupt. Now, we are talking, fresh bedclothes, fruit, tea,juice, nothing else, you won’t get anything into this prison now’ (R27). The
combination of harsh legislation to put the qurdebi in prison, isolation once there, andall beneficial ties with previous patrons broken was ‘a double act – stop them inprison and outside it’ (R5).

151

6.4.3 Educational Reform

The ‘culture of lawfulness’ campaign began before the Rose Revolution in
2000, though many of the policies were only carried through after the revolution. It
included the involvement of an internationally active NGO, the National Strategy
Information Center (NCIS) based in Washington DC, and many of the elements ofcampaign had been tried and tested in other countries previously, specifically inSicily. Following the Sicilian model, ‘educating for legality’ was introduced into thecurriculum (Schneider & Schneider 2003, p. 265). A course teaching the principles ofcitizenship was introduced into Georgian schools encouraging tolerance, nonviolence, and respect for the law. Part of the course brings policemen into the schools
to talk to the schoolchildren. It also recommends viewings of the film adaptation ofWilliam Golding’s Lord of the Flies and the Mafioso-turned-pentiti story told in the
Hollywood film Goodfellas (Godson et al. 2003, p. 26).
Respondents, including three Kutaisi headmasters, students from schools in
Kutaisi that had previously graduated renowned qurdebi, and representatives of the
Ministry of Education suggested that these programmes have been positively received
and positive normative orientations towards the qurdebi uprooted. One academic
believes that this ‘change is not psychological so much as behavioural…they[schoolchildren] have the same attitudes but the incentives are no longer to act in linewith those attitudes. There is no incentive now to be a qurdi. You won’t achieve
anything with it….Schoolkids are the quickest in understanding what they want fromlife, what is fashionable and what is not. Now, they have pressure to study to achieve
something’ (R6).

152

The educational reform should also be seen as part of the state’s renegotiationof its relationship with the qurdebi. A central element of the qurdebi’s code had
always been the attraction of youth to their way of life. As one respondent put it: ‘themain goal for the qurdebi? Maintaining a legacy’ (R2). The state then had to givesome form of alternative to this and mobilise bias against the thieves’ way of life. It is
one of the wheels of Orlando’s cart without which the qurdebi could still maintain ahold as ideal type criminals being persecuted by a fundamentally unjust state. Thus, aswell as repressing the trust network through the use of coercive state machinery, it
was necessary to dry up the potential recruiting pool and bring over young people tothe side of the state and the law.

6.5 Strategies of ResistanceGeorgian policy-makers followed Orlando’s anti-mafia strategy closely. The
educational reform was a direct attack on the reputation of the qurdebi and their
popularity amongst young people. The new criminal legislation was incredibly direct,
identifying the qurdebi by name, criminalising and stigmatising the status itself. The
removal of corrupt police and prison officers removed the safety buffer that had once
protected individual qurdebi from state attack. The speed and simultaneity of thereforms left little room for manoeuvre:‘I don’t think the qurdebi really understood what was going on or the extent of thechanges that were being brought in. They didn’t get the legislation, we talked to themwhen they were arrested and…it was clear to us that they thought that normal service
would be resumed, but the conditions and the way they are kept now is fundamentallydifferent, they are being shown disrespect and it all happened too quickly for them torespond.’ (R43)153

The rules of the game for resisting the state had been changed. The strategies
open to the qurdebi in avoiding predation had been reduced. Opportunities forclientage and bargaining had been minimised. The state was not interested in enlistingor working with the qurdebi with the exception of plea-bargaining in the court. I willshow below that the qurdebi’s options were to fight back and attempt their own
predation of the state, conceal themselves, or else dissimulate dissolution of the trust
network.
At a news conference in Tbilisi on 12 January 2004 Saakashvili vowed to takea tough line against prisoners preparing to riot in support of the qurdebi. ‘We willshoot down the rioters. We will not spare bullets against them. I know that thecriminal world will resist. But we are not afraid’ (Civil 2004). Similarly, December
2005 was a particularly troublesome month as the government opened a new prison in
Kutaisi intended to improve conditions and break up the hierarchies and patterns ofinteractions amongst the prisoners. On the 22nd a riot occurred in which the prisoners
demanded phones and the return of the ‘makarubeli,’ or thieves’ overseer, suggestingthat the removal of criminal authority figures from the prison had caused disruption toprison life (Regnum 2005a). Then on the 25th of that month, 8,000 prisoners (of aprison population of 13,000 at the time) declared a hunger strike in a protest allegedly
instigated by the qurdebi. In response, the former head of the prison service Bacho
Akhalia announced (Regnum 2005b): ‘there will be no thieves’ law in the prisons, allprisoners will subordinate themselves to the official rules.’The biggest uprising seemingly against the new rules occurred in March 2006.
A riot at Ortachala Prison no. 5 in Tbilisi was put down with the use of special forces
and seven prisoners lost their lives. An alleged qurdi, Platon Mamardashvili, led theprison riot (Anjaparidze 2006). He later claimed that he had been duped by the police154

and denied he had ever been ‘baptised’ as a qurdi (Public Defender 2007). Wiretaps
showed that there had been telephone contact from Tariel Potskveriya a Kutaisi born
qurdi based in Ukraine who was subsequently deported and brought before a Tbilisi
court. There were apparent attempts to spread the riot to other prisons in Western
Georgia (R38). The Georgian government framed the riot as a final attempt by thethieves’ world to destabilise the country and revert back to the original contract
between the qurdebi and the state. The Chairman of the Parliamentary Judicial Issues
Committee, Levan Bezhashvili implicated the political opposition. Saakashvilialluded to the fact that ‘Russian oligarchic capital as well as very serious local Mafia
interests’ had been threatened by his anti-mafia policies (Slade 2007, p. 176).
The Ombudsman at the time, who visited the prison on the night of the riot,
was unconvinced by these arguments. ‘It was not some insurrection or anything of thekind…the prisoners started creating a shumok [a noisy disturbance], there was little
organisation to it, there was no attempted mass breakout or anything of this kind, justonce it started Potskveriya was contacted’ (R43). Following this observation, aplausible line of argument may be that the changes to the prison administration andthe movement and separation of the prisoners after the Rose Revolution createduncertain conditions in the prisons destabilising them and nurturing conditions forconflict and revolt. When this occurred, it did at times spread from prison to prison. It
is still another leap from this, however, to the idea that the qurdebi were engaged incollective action across the penal estate as a means of resistance to the state’s attempts
to repress them.
Instead, it is likely then that the state’s own anti-mafia actions had beensuccessful enough to render Saakashvili and his government’s conspiratorial
explanation of events such as the prison riots untenable. The speed of the Rose

155

Revolution and its harshness made it impossible for the qurdebi to coordinate andcollectively challenge the state. Furthermore, as we have seen in the decade or soleading up to the revolution the relationship between the state and qurdebi was
predominantly on a quid pro quo individual basis and the qurdebi’s own network had
become loose, factionalised and fractious making retaliation harder still (see chapter
8).
The strategies left to the qurdebi then, other than complete dissolution, wereconcealment or dissimulation. Though on the face of it dissolution appears to havetaken place there may be an element of dissimulation in this. Certainly, no prisoner
can claim sympathies with the qurdebi without having their sentence added to (R26),
and those who declare an allegiance to the qurdebi are allegedly targets of humiliationand degrading treatment (R3). Therefore, it makes sense to dissimulate any adherenceor faithfulness to the old thievish ways. Yet, two to three years after the legislation,
court cases are still being brought against alleged adherents of the thieves’ world who
remain in contact with qurdebi living in Russia and elsewhere (Lenta 2007; GeorgianTimes 2008; Interpress News 2010). Assuming that the charges against these people
are fair, those involved in these cases might be seen as dissimulating, going alongwith the general anti-mafia sentiment of the day, whilst still adhering to the old normsof the thieves’ world until found out. ‘These are the same people who a few years ago
respected the qurdebi’s tradition. I think you can’t change the mentality so simply’(R6). Many in Georgia believe that the old ways of thinking and acting are stillpresent and even drive opposition to the state (R17).
However, the easiest and most utilised strategy is concealment, which in thequrdebi case has taken the form of migration from Georgia. For those qurdebi who
had stayed in Georgia the best strategy was to hide from the Georgian state abroad.

156

This appears to have become the predominant strategy. The number of qurdebi in
Moscow has grown and the last few years have seen growing numbers of crackdownsin Spain, Austria, Greece and France where Georgian gangsters in groups often
headed by qurdebi have been held (Europol 2005; Oxford Analytica 2010; BBC2010).
The Georgian government has attempted to have many of its thievishcompatriots deported back to Georgia to face charges of membership of the thieves’world and some requests have been successful. There have also been some intriguingcases where the Georgian authorities, for reasons unknown, have been uncooperativewith their foreign counterparts in pursuing Georgian qurdebi abroad (Guardian 2010).
Meanwhile, the government has also continually claimed that influential exiled
qurdebi have attempted to foment trouble back in Georgia, supporting opposition
rallies and intrigues against the government (Messenger 2009), including the
Mukhrovani mutiny against the government in May 2009 (Civil 2009). An
investigation has been started in Austria into allegations that Georgian organised
crime groups were using Austria as a base to operate in and fund opposition protests
in Tbilisi in the spring of 2009 (Crawford 2010). If true, perhaps this suggests thateven concealed trust networks can still attempt predation if they feel threatened
enough.

6.6 Conclusion

In summary, Table 6.1 below shows the changes in the relationship between
the kanonieri qurdebi and the Georgian state and the outcomes from their changing
interactions. As stressed previously, Table 6.1 should not be taken to suggest that the157state or the qurdebi should be taken as monolithic entities with overarching, collective
strategies towards one another. The majority of the time relations were on a micro andpersonal level between individuals representing the state and the qurdebi network.
While the qurdebi did coordinate at collective meetings (skhodki), and formallybanned collusion with the state in their original code of honour, it cannot be shownthat the qurdebi as a group had an enforced and uniform policy towards the state by
the later Soviet period. However, the general tendencies in the relations between thestate and the qurdebi can be observed as follows:

Time Period

State Strategy

Qurdebi Strategy

OutcomeLater Soviet

Toleration/

Clientage

NegotiatedRepression
Post-Soviet

Connection

Toleration/

Clientage &NegotiatedFacilitation

Bargaining

Connection/
Integration

Post-Rose

Repression

Revolution

Predation,

Segregation

Dissimulation &Concealment

Table 6.1 to show predominant relational strategies of the state and the qurdebi in Georgia
over time

These relations are utterly central to the analysis of the resilience of thequrdebi. It is also a question that fascinates most Georgians. Many believe that thequrdebi’s resilience is due to the state needing them and therefore facilitating their
existence, even creating them:158‘Ask yourself, why now? Why have the government got rid of them [the qurdebi] now?
Surely it’s because the government don’t need them anymore. They were necessary in
the past…when you have an authoritarian regime they can’t control aspects of life
and they need this type of informal control. And when we had a non-functioning
democracy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was also necessary to have thistype of social control in place, but now we have democracy, we have proper security,
law enforcement, and less corruption, so we don’t need these qurdebi anymore.’(R42)

Yet there was no great mutually beneficial deal between qurdebi and state. In
fact, the state during Soviet times was surreptitiously attacking the qurdebi and what
it termed ‘group crime.’ However, the relationship between the qurdebi and the state
existed beneath the radar of these crime control policies. It was made up of individuallevel ties produced by familiarity in wider social networks and strategic interactions
based on quid pro quo reasoning. Here, then, the often-cited tight-knit familial natureof Georgian society is useful to emphasise (Mars & Altman 1983; Suny 1994; Nordin& Glonti 2005; Kukhianidze 2006). The inter-connectedness of Georgian social life
must surely have facilitated the clientage that the qurdebi practised in the 1980s and1990s. The result of this local social reality was, on the whole, a negotiatedconnection between the state and qurdebi through patronage.
Individual qurdebi were able to shape their own relations with officials andcivil servants throughout both the later and post Soviet periods. The state meanwhile,
up to the Rose Revolution at least, lacked the type of dynamic and coherent anticorruption and crime control strategy that would completely break the individuallevel ties between the qurdebi and state representatives. In terms of this then, thesingularly most important feature of the anti-mafia reforms pushed through by the
Saakashvili administration was the turnover of personnel that had been enacted withthe reforms of the police and the prisons. This must be seen as highly significant inmaking the qurdebi vulnerable to state shock and therefore lessening their chances of159

surviving such a shock. Speed and simultaneity learnt from international best practice
was met with little response by the qurdebi other than the wholesale abandonment ofGeorgia for other countries.
The move to concealment through migration in the criminal world might becompletely explained by the effectiveness of the reforms combined with the harshness
with which they were implemented. As an explanation this would be too simple
however. In the next four chapters of the thesis, I take up an analysis of the dynamics,
adaptations, contradictions and shortcomings in the thieves’ world. This shows thatthe decline of the qurdebi and the success of the Georgian anti-mafia struggle isrooted in many other factors than post-Rose Revolution strength of law enforcement
policies.

160

7. Fitting the Frame: Recruitment Practices andAdaptation“Such is the thief’s fate
Trouble follows him always
More than half his life
In prison he must spend”
Lines from a popular Georgian song

“A thief should be in prison!”

Famous line of Captain Gleb Zheglov played by Vladimir Vitsotskiy in the 1979
Soviet detective series 'Mesto Vstrechi Izmenit' Nel'zya' ['The Meeting Place Cannot
be Changed'].

The qurdebi have gone through huge social upheavals and economic traumas
and, just as the rest of the population, have adapted to these new realities. In terms ofthese adaptations, the most basic grounds for the survival of any institution is inmaintaining an influx of new, committed members. As Tilly (2006, p. 22) says: ‘both
political regimes and trust networks…depend on a constant flow of new resourcesthat supports their major activities and reproduces the structures making those
activities possible…trust networks that stop recruiting new, committed individuals
shrivel in no more than a single generation.’ Similarly, the literature on the ecology oforganisations also suggests that a flexible supply of human resources is necessary to161survive exogenous shocks, a key component of resilience (Hannan & Freeman 1984;
Bouchard 2007).
This chapter looks at the dynamics of recruitment to the qurdebi in a changing
environment. I show the importance of the prison as a central feature of qurdebi
recruitment practice, framing this in terms of candidates signalling necessary
attributes. I then go on to plot changes in the use of prison as a costly signal that may
be used for ‘screening’ potential candidates. I find that there appears to have been adecrease in the use of prison prior to initiation of new recruits. I argue that this is asignificant change and a lowering of barriers to entry that is in line with otherphenomena such as the title of kanoneri qurdi being sold by already made men. I thendiscuss possible causes of this change. I put forward a number of hypotheses thatappear to be supported by the data available.
This chapter draws on interviews conducted in Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Zugdidi, as
well as secondary sources. It also utilises police files on individual qurdebi from theSpecial Operations Department in Tbilisi and Kutaisi. I turn first however to thetheoretical frame for this chapter, which utilises the insights of signalling theory.

7.1 Recruitment and Signalling Attributes

Recruiting to any organisation whether it is a business, an academic
department or a football team involves issues of trusting that a candidate has thenecessary attributes to add to the resources of the group. In the criminal world this iseven more pertinent as a question; as Gambetta (1993) states, there are certain
resources that a mafia needs which its members must to some extent provide. These162

are first and foremost a capacity for violence, the ability to collect and manage
information, to keep and maintain a good reputation, and to maintain good public
relations by advertising yourself and your activities successfully (see Gambetta 1993,
chapter 2). Thus, any potential recruit to a mafia must be able to add somehow tothese resources. Having the right qualities is one thing but communicating this fact isfraught with difficulties in an underworld suffering from a deep deficit of trust due tothe potential for infiltration by undercover police, whistleblowers or those who might
not finally be up to the task.
Michael Spence (1973) gave the classic statement of the problem of signallingin economics when he analysed the issue of finding suitable employees in the job
market. In signalling games, there is asymmetric information between two players.
One, the signaller s, wishes to convince the other, the receiver r, that he possesses
certain attributes, a certain level of productivity for example. What signal can s send
that would be regarded by r as trustworthy, showing that s has the necessary
attributes? Overcoming this problem in the workplace involves investing in certain
signals agreed upon by convention over time such as educational qualifications. The
mechanism by which this signalling works ultimately rests on the belief of thereceiver of the signal that qualifications indeed are trustworthy signals of
productivity.
Spence showed that this argument works regardless of whether a university
qualification really enhances skills (Gibbons 1992; Hargreaves-Heap & Varoufakis2004). Instead, high-ability candidates choose to go to university to signal theirotherwise unobservable ability to future employers. This can only work however if
low-ability candidates are unable to incur the costs of getting a given university
qualification. Thus, there should be a cost differential between what someone with the163right qualities (the hidden krypton factor k) can afford to signal relative to someone
who does not have the qualities needed (non-k) (Bacharach & Gambetta 2001).
Ideally, the cost of the signal should be such that only the non-k candidate would findit prohibitively expensive. The relative cost of the signal to the k and non-k candidates
is the discriminating factor between them. A signal that does not meet the cost
discriminating condition, that is, one that can be produced cheaply for both k and nonk signallers, creates uncertainty as to the potential value for taking on the recruit(Spence 1973). Furthermore, where the cost discriminating condition holds, the costs
the k signaller incurs should be relative to the potential benefits to both signaller andreceiver making the production of the signal a rational thing to do. Those benefits inthe job market are usually thought of as higher wages for the signaller, whereas thereceiver gains the potential recruit’s productive capability if the signalling works.
Equilibrium is reached when the cost of signalling is prohibitively expensive for those
who do not have the right abilities, putting them off attempting to acquire and send
the signal, while the benefits of investing in the signal and utilising it are suitably highand the relative cost suitably low to make it worthwhile to those who do have thoseabilities.
Following Spence (1973) and Bacharach & Gambetta (2001) then, a signal ismeant here as an action by a signaller (s) to raise the probability that the signalreceiver (r) assigns to the fact that the signaller is indeed the type of person hesuggests he is. For r the question as to whether he or she can trust the candidate to do
x is answered by whether the observable signals displayed actually are of the desired
hidden krypton factor, k (Ibid).
However, while it is in the interests of the k candidate to create clear
unambiguous signals of her qualities, it is also in the interests of the non-k candidate164to blur those signals and make them easy to mimic. A mimicker is a person
manifesting the right signs in order to signal unobservable deeper qualities that are notin actual fact there. In the criminal world this happens to be a particular problem interms of the mistaken recruiting of stool pigeons or undercover police (Gambetta
2009a).
In getting around such problems in the mafia, the costs placed on potential
candidates are subject to the action of the made men themselves. The in-group canraise the barriers to entry by only accepting costlier signals as authentic indicators ofcharacter much as an employer might do by requiring master’s level education rather
than bachelor’s. This might account for the Japanese Yakuza’s practice of requiring
candidates to chop off one of their little fingers. Still the employer does not want tomake the signal too costly relative to the benefits the employee will acquire once
hired, as then he or she will have no candidates for the job.
Another strategy for the mafia is ‘imposing constraints of affordability on the
mimic’ (Gambetta 2009a) by harshening punishments for someone who is faking thenecessary skills especially if they are working for the police. However, this is not aparticularly cost effective strategy as punishing itself is an expensive activity thatinvolves collecting information and taking risks (Ibid). Also it may be put into effectonly after the fact, meaning the costs of hiring have already been taken on.
Furthermore, punishment depends on the efficiency of the policing of the boundariesof the group; if this is not effective some opportunists might still slip through the net.
Thus, putting the onus on the signaller to carry costs and produce clear, authentic,
cost-discriminating signals is the best strategy for the employer, whether a mafia orotherwise. However, in the language of game theory, most signalling games are only
semi-sorting. That is they mainly fail to separate perfectly the k signallers from the165

non-k signallers (Bacharach & Gambetta 2001; Bliege-Bird & Alden Smith 2005).
Equilibrium in these games is delicate. There may always be some fraudsters who getthrough.
This is all relevant to the qurdebi as I will show. In the remainder of thechapter, I look at the role of the prison as a signalling device for potential recruits. I
show that historically the prison was a vital element in signalling criminal‘productivity’ and ability to perform well as a future qurdi. Utilising police data
however, I find that the use of the prison has diminished in the 1990s. The decline in
the use of prison is augmented by other novel recruitment practices such as the buyingof the qurdi title by potential recruits. I argue that although exogenous factors such as
the weakness of law enforcement in part explain the decline in the use of prison
experience as a signal other strong explanations include an increase in violent
competition and increases in agency and opportunity costs for those who would
otherwise police the recruitment practices of the qurdebi. I argue that these changes
represent an important shift in ‘sorting’ potential candidates that might well havedetrimental effects for the reputation of the qurdebi ‘brand’.

7.2 Initiation and Trust

In Georgia certain terms describe a young man’s proximity to the day of‘baptism’ or ‘crowning’ as a qurdi. Firstly, the term kai bichi (goodfella) means
someone who follows the qurdebi but who may or may not have any pretensions
himself of becoming a qurdi. Secondly, a momevali, meaning literally ‘future’, is a
kai bichi who has declared himself as living by the qurdebi’s code or understandings,
known as the gageba, and is a shortening of the phrase ‘looking to the future’ which
166

takes the meaning of someone who is trying to become a qurdi. Thirdly, the term
ganapi denotes someone whose candidacy is already being considered and is renderedin Russian as ‘bez pyati minut’, or ‘five to the hour’ with the connotation of when thehour strikes you will have the title. As one respondent put it (R19): ‘In general ayoung man, maybe 17 or 18 years old can announce that he is ‘looking to the future’,that is that he wants to become a qurdi and that he will live that life. In this sense they
become a soldier so to speak, they act and work on behalf of the qurdebi, like afootman for them.’
Many of the ‘baptisms’ for which there is specific information take place inprison during the first or second conviction. For example, the ethnically Kurdish
qurdi Sumbat Abasov was baptized in the Rustavi camp [koloniya] in 1990, during aseven year term for theft (krazh’). His main recommender was the powerful Kurdish
qurdi known as Ded Hasan; other attendees at the skhodka came in from outside thecamp for the occasion (Prime Crime 2008a). Rustavi qurdi Lasha Tolstii was firstcrowned during a 6-month sentence in Tbilisi in 1979, at the young age of 18. This
indicates that life experience and age by itself is not as essential as proving yourself inprison as Lasha it seems was able to do rather quickly. The trust in this young qurdi
was well-founded as Lasha went on to collect three more convictions and amass 11
more years behind bars and is now a very influential figure in the Tbilisskaya groupbelonging to Ded Hasan in Moscow (Prime Crime 2008b).
Once time in prison has been served, a new recruit must go through an
initiation ritual. The initiation process takes place at a thieves’ meeting, known as askhodka, and in itself acts as a test for ensuring that new recruits are of high quality.
The ritual process has been described well elsewhere (Varese 2001, chapter 7)
however, the aspect of the skhodka that needs emphasising for the purposes of this167

chapter is the role it plays in bridging the informational gap in terms of trusting thecharacter and identity of a new recruit.
According to Gurov (1995), ‘the main purpose [of the skhodka] is to define
the trustworthiness of the candidate to propagate the thieves’ idea amongst other lawbreakers.’ In the process of the skhodka then it is important to establish theauthenticity of the candidate. The method taken to achieve this is referral. Two or
more recommendations are needed from made men. Through this method therecommenders are held responsible for the future performance of the would be qurdi,
known as the malyutka, encouraging full checks before putting a recommendation
forward and discouraging ills such as nepotism or the desire to insulate yourself
through recruiting many of your own men. The recommending qurdebi prefer toknow the candidate intimately, thus the recruit has ‘to follow along with them, spend
time with them, show yourself, help the families, money, rent, they have to get toknow you, if they don’t know who you are you can’t just become a qurdi, you have tohave respect’ (R10).
Knowing someone’s character and, for a candidate, getting close to thequrdebi is most efficient in the prison environment. Information on someone is easierto acquire and behaviour easier to observe. In prison when someone is put forward forbaptism a ksiva is passed round, a note with the malyutka’s qualifications written on
it, the thieves’ version of a CV (Gurov 1995; Varese 2001). The process thenproceeds along the lines of an interrogation, with questions put forward and themalyutka asked to justify past actions (R2). One skhodka reported in Samtredia inwestern Georgia involved a candidate who did not pass this test due to the presence of
one qurdi who was the friend of a Kutaisi family whose daughter the candidate had
had illicit relations with outside of wedlock. This evidently threw doubt on the168candidate’s character and the doubting qurdi refused to give his vote to the candidate(R40).
Once all agree that the candidate is worthy the new recruit takes an oath ofallegiance which according to some is very similar to that taken by Soviet Communist
Party members (Oleinik 2003). The issue of trust comes across strongly in the oath.
The oath, according to Gurov (1995, p. 106), is: ‘I, as a goodfella [patsan], have taken
the thieves’ way in life, I swear, in front of the thieves that are present at the skhodka,
to have nothing to do with the fraud of the Chekists.’ This oath expresses one of thefirst traditional canons of the qurdebi’s law: to have nothing to do with the state. It
also seems to express a deep anxiety about being infiltrated by the police (theChekists). Problems of ensuring the authenticity of the new recruit are at the centre of
the qurdebi’s initiation ritual then. So how can a young man who desires to become akanoneri qurdi signal that his intention is true and strong and that he is worth making
a made man? In the thieves’ world, prison is the key.

7.3 The Role of Prison

Prison, as Gambetta (2009a) has stated, is an excellent ‘screening device’ forfinding trustworthy partners for serious criminals. Undeniably, prison provides an
excellent educational experience for a life of crime. Like schools that offer
submersion courses, it perfects skills in argot, the reading of tattoos, and informal
codes of behaviour. In the environment of the prison, personal information flows andtight connections form between inmates. This makes genuine prison experience very
difficult to fake. Thus, prison experience can be used as a trustworthy signal of
someone’s criminal credentials. Prison experience meets the cost-discriminating169

condition in signalling theory, as it is most definitely a costly signal for those that are
not truly dedicated to the thieves’ life. Few people would be willing to enter such aharsh environment for a prolonged period with the aim of becoming a qurdi without
real commitment to this goal. Furthermore, numbers of convictions and length ofsentences are measurable signals – the greater the length of time spent in prison the
more dedication and knowledge of the thieves’ code and informal behavioural rules aperson is likely to have.
Prison also enables monitoring. For one thing it can be immediately known
what crime someone has committed and this itself might act as a signal.25 Behaviour
in prison is easier to closely observe and ensure that rules are kept to. Such rules
include the fact that kai bichebi should never work in prison, they should give to andcollect for the common fund known as the obshchak, shun the undesirables in prison,
have command of jargon and skills at card-playing. In pre-Rose Revolution Georgia,
the qurdebi often controlled prisons (so-called ‘black’ prisons) thus making prison an
intense environment where hiding character flaws or attempted imitation of desirable
qualities could be easily picked up on. Indeed, the qurdebi’s ‘representatives’ inprison are called makarublebi, or ‘overseers’. Traditionally qurdebi were crowned inprison, presumably after they had proved themselves there.
Prison experience is then an absolute necessity in the traditions of the
kanoneri qurdebi, who are after all carriers of, and agitators for, a penal subculture.
Time in prison was a prerequisite for becoming a qurdi (Nordin & Glonti 2005; R8).

25

The data (AOCU-T & K) reveal that the far most prevalent article in the data for the first threeconvictions is for stealing (article 150), as well as hooliganism, drug possession, and arms carrying.
Stealing of course allows one to live without working perhaps making it a necessary and respectedcrime for would be qurdebi forbidden as they are from undertaking gainful employment. Similarly, acharge of hooliganism in Soviet times was often for simply being unemployed or loitering on the street,again signalling a lifestyle choice upon arrival in prison. Harsher crimes such as murder do not figure
presumably as these are not necessarily good signals unless committed in the right normative context
for example, in aid of a qurdi.

170

The vast majority of qurdebi have been convicted and imprisoned at some point. The
inevitability and even desirability of serving a prison term in Georgia meant that someyoung men, deciding on living the thieves’ life, prepared themselves for the hardprison beds by sleeping on the floor at home (R29). Prison experience is vital for
generating shared experience and trust in potential recruits, thus ‘baptism’ of new
recruits should only occur after convictions have occurred. The data suggest this to be
the case. The average first conviction age is 20 (N=67) whereas the mean baptism age
is 24 (N=76) (AOCU-T 2004; AOCU-K 2004). Though this is a small sample it doessuggest that baptism occurs only during or after a prison term.
Prison as a central feature of the qurdebi’s existence can make a smart
signalling device for measuring someone’s trustworthiness, capabilities and authority.
However, as discussed theoretically above, prison, like university, works not byteaching specific skills but by being deliberately chosen by people to signal theirgreater suitability for a job to future employers. To what extent can the use of theprison be a seen as a deliberate strategy and therefore a signalling device?26 An
answer to this involves restating the degree to which a prison term was very muchanticipated by those who wanted to choose the thieves’ life. Whether or not it was
desired or looked forward to, it was seen as inevitable by anyone following thethieves’ life in the Soviet Union. Potential qurdebi had to have refused to work or
wear uniforms all their lives and this on its own would have been enough to beconvicted in Soviet times for ‘parasitism’.
Thus, while prison is forced upon a person by the state, in the Soviet Union
this imposition was to no small extent brought about by the intentional choice oflifestyle taken up prior to this. All this is not to deny that there might be cases of26

I am grateful to Dr. Heather Hamill for bringing this question to my attention in a workshop on
signalling theory at Nuffield College, Oxford, December 2009.

171

people going to prison completely unintentionally but then choosing to ingratiatethemselves with the thieves only during or after prison. Such cases, it is true, might
dilute a signalling system that solely relied on the fact of having been in prison.
However, it is not being argued here that prison was the only signal for sorting
candidates, but that accumulated prison experience was merely one of the most basic
and important ones.
Other possible signals such as investing in the communal fund or obshchak,burning bridges with other social ties other than the thieves’ community, a criminal
history of the ‘right’ types of crime – murderers and violent criminals were unreliable
and seen as a lower caste than the thieves - refusal to work or wear uniforms, and theability to speak well and follow the thieves’ code in disputes might all be seen as
signals if it can be shown that they manage to cost-discriminate between those thathave the skills and those that do not. For example, burning bridges with your family
would be a cost-discriminating signal, while talking well and refusing to work would
simply represent desirable features and skills to have rather than signals.
In summary then, the fact of prison experience is a cost-discriminating signal.
This is true if it can be shown as I have tried to here, that for a criminal dedicated tothe thieves’ idea going to prison was an intentional signal required from all candidates
as a basic prerequisite in becoming a qurdi.

7.4 Changes in the Use of Prison in Recruitment

The data show that the average number of convictions for Georgian qurdebi is
2.4 with a range of 0 to 9. The overall mean number of convictions is skewed
downwards by those that have zero convictions. Once these cases are excluded mean172

convictions stands at 3. It was unexpected to find any cases of zero convictions given
the importance of convictions and subsequent prison time for becoming a qurdi. So an
important question becomes: who was being baptised without having served prison
time? Looking at this deeper I found that the differences in prison experience changed
over time with the greatest change occurring after Georgian independence in 1991.
Bringing together data from the police databases from Tbilisi and Kutaisi, I divided
the cases (N=92) into four cohorts based on theoretical reflections of where changes
might be expected due to alterations in the political order and socio-economic life ofGeorgia (for an explanation of this see chapter 3). Cases were placed in cohorts
according to an estimate (based on the available data) of when a qurdi would havebeen baptised and spent some time living according to the thievish understandings.
This age was 24. It is very likely that by this age most would have a conviction, have
served time in prison and have clear designs on becoming a baptised qurdi. Table 7.1
shows that the vast majority of those qurdebi with zero convictions occur in one
cohort.

173

Cohort1952-

Number of Convictions

Total

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

8

9

0

0

0

2

1

3

1

0

0

7

0

1

3

2

5

3

0

1

1

16

1

3

4

8

4

4

2

0

0

26

18

13

7

4

1

0

0

0

0

43

19

17

14

16

11

10

3

1

1

92

1971
19721981
19821991
19922004
Total

Table 7.1: differences in numbers of convictions across cohorts

Source: AOCU-T & K 2004

Due to age it is to be expected that cases from the youngest cohort would have
low numbers of convictions while older cohorts would have higher numbers and theresults show this to be the case. However, the fact that so many from the youngest
cohort became qurdebi without having prison experience is less expected.27
Is it possible that the members of other cohorts had become qurdebi before
spending time in prison as well thus making the 1992-2004 cohort no exception?
Based on historical accounts and the centrality of prison in the thieves’ world this isvery unlikely, at least on to such an extent as is the case with the youngest cohort in
27

The average number of convictions falls the younger the cohorts get. Mean number of convictions
for each cohort is as follows: for 1952-1971 it stands at 4.4 (N=7), for 1972-1981 – 4.0 (N=16), 19821991 – 3.1 (N=26), 1992-2004 – 1.0 (N=43). A Mann-Whitney U test to test the difference of thescores between the two youngest cohorts, 1982-1991 (N=26) and 1992-2004 (N=43), shows that thevariation cannot have been produced by random. The cohort effect is also strong (r = 0.6, p < 0.000).
Naturally, with such small numbers this is a non-parametric test. However, despite these drawbacks theresults suggest that the cohort effect on the variation in conviction numbers requires explanantion.

174

my analysis. Respondents were adamant that prison was absolutely necessary to
become a qurdi. One respondent drew parallels with the dissident movement; to show
dedication to a cause prison experience was required (R17). Another, (R9), said: ‘inthe past, if you hadn’t sat in prison there was no way you could be baptized, you
couldn’t! In the past there was proper respect for these traditions.’ The data in thefiles also show that, of those qurdebi that have convictions, the first conviction age isaround 20 across all cohorts, yet the age of ‘baptism’ was older, in the mid-twenties
again for all cohorts. Thus, on average across cohorts the qurdebi that do haveconvictions and prison experience, acquire them before they attain their status.
Furthermore, all qurdebi should have a conviction simply based on their codeof honor, which demands it. And, moreover, the younger cohort should have moreconvictions generally based on the data available. The average age in the year when
the police reports were complied - 2004 - of a member of the 1992-2004 cohort was
already 30. Given that the mean age for first conviction across cohorts was around 20
years old, second conviction 24 and third conviction 28, we would still expect moreof this cohort to have at least one or more convictions regardless of whether they werebaptized before or after these convictions.
The most obvious explanation in understanding why so many qurdebi fromthis 1992-2004 cohort have no convictions is to consider that the authorities in the
1990s were relatively weaker than during Soviet times and levels of impunity were
therefore higher. The Georgian criminal justice system was extremely weak after thecollapse of the Soviet Union. The cost in signaling through prison experience isconstituted by the actions of the state (Gambetta 2009b) and so changes in thecapabilities of the authorities have consequences for equilibrium in the signaling
game in sorting good candidates out from bad ones. However, this still does not alter

175

the fact that actors with no time in prison were still able to become qurdebi, a practicethat would seemingly contradict principles strongly held in the thieves’ worldpreviously. Thus, this explanation also does not get to the heart of the matter. One of
the main signals for screening candidates appears to become blurred in the 1990s. The
reasons and consequences of such a change are examined in the next sections below.

7.5 Determinants of Changes in Recruitment: Hypotheses

Sorting signals grounded in the prison help the qurdebi infer as to the qualitiesof potential candidates and from the data presented above these appear to be in flux.
The issue of declining amounts of prison experience is particularly important.
Recruitment decisions taken on the basis of, for example, behaviour in the street
environment is nowhere near as reliable as the prison for screening candidates andmistakes are more likely to be made. For those already made men prison time
represents intense shared experience that facilitates the growth of trust. Prison isimportant in structuring the qurdebi’s recruitment practices therefore a reduction inthis appears to represent a lowering of barriers to entry in becoming a qurdi. If this is
the case then we might expect to see certain consequences of this. I will deal with thislater in chapter 10. For now I turn to possible causes of these changes.
I propose two hypotheses that I will briefly explore in the rest of this chapter.
Firstly, a normative change may have occurred where shifts in recruitment andspecifically lowering barriers, were seen as necessary for whatever reason. I willshow below that this hypothesis can be to some degree supported by the increasinglevels of violence in the 1990s that forced a change in the qurdebi’s way of recruiting.
Secondly, the costs of the act of punishing wayward recruitment practices may
176have changed increasing to the point where the benefits of punishing were
outweighed by the costs (Ensminger 2001). It is in the interests of the would-be
punisher to enact punishment only as a last resort and to use other policing methods
such as cost-discriminating signalling demands on the would-be recruits to monitor
boundaries (Gambetta 2009a). Thus the act of punishment is always costly but notinvariably so. Costs may vary according to agency problems. Principals who want topunish may find that the cost has increased or decreased due to variation in the
difficulties in obtaining information, passing a judgement and carrying out the actual
punishment. Variation in costs to punishment could also consist in increasing or
decreasing opportunity costs where this means that the act of punishing becomes
more or less expensive depending on other opportunities missed whilst carrying out
the punishment.
I show below that these two costs, agency and opportunity, may well haveincreased for potential punishers thus lowering incentives on policing the qurdebi’sboundaries. Now however I turn to the first hypothesis: that changes in recruitment
were brought about out of necessity and that this shifted attitudes to lowering barriers
to entry.

7.5.1 Competition

To answer the question of why barriers to entry decreased for new recruits forthe cohort ‘baptised’ after 1992 we need to think of what distinguishes this period
compared to the others. The first thing that should become immediately obvious isthat 1992 is Georgia’s first full year of independence from the Soviet Union. The
1990s onwards represent a brave new world compared to the other periods. Georgia
177

experienced state collapse and an economic decline incomparably worse than any
other former Soviet republic (Wheatley 2005; Coppieters & Legvold 2006). The
emergence of the market in a collapsed economy then, state weakness and hugeamounts of civil strife mark out this period as being significantly different to what had
preceded it in recent history. It is worth describing this in some more detail to get afeel for the proliferation of violence at this time.
Georgian society was hit by violent outbreaks as the Soviet Union
disintegrated. Often these were along ethnic and nationalistic lines as in the conflicts
with Abkhazia and South Ossetia but there were also clashes based on politicalfactionalism within the Georgian elite. Mass prison breakout in 1991, after the returnof some of the most dangerous Georgian recidivists from Russia on the politicaldemand of new elected President Gamsakhurdia, contributed to the increase of
hardened criminals at large in society. Paramilitaries formed including Mkhedrioni,
founded by the qurdi Jaba Ioseliani, and the National Guard led by Tengiz Kitovani,
another figure with a criminal past.
By January 1992 these paramilitaries had played a decisive part in theoverthrow of Gamsakhurdia in an armed coup and his replacement by a makeshift
triumvirate that included Ioseliani and Kitovani. Shevardnadze, an internationallyrenowned peace broker in the cold war, was invited to head a government andreturned in 1992. One interpretation of the invitation to Shevardnadze is that it was
only on the condition that Shevardnadze accept Ioseliani’s protection (Slider 1997;
Ekedahl & Goodman 2001). In the 1960s, allegedly it had been Shevardnadze who
had protected Ioseliani, now the order of things had been turned on its head.28
According to Shevardnadze’s biographers (Ekedahl & Goodman 2001, p. 265),
28

Ekedahl & Goodman (2001) and Slider (1997) refer to a time when Ioseliani had been imprisoned in
the 1960s but was helped by Shevardnadze who at the time was in charge of internal affairs in Georgia.
In an interview, Shevardnadze himself did not substantiate these claims (R41).

178

‘without a power base of his own Shevardnadze had formed an unholy alliance of
convenience with several anti-Gamsakhurdia leaders, particularly Ioseliani the“godfather” who had sponsored Shevardnadze’s return to Tbilisi.’In the early 1990s then, Ioseliani’s Mkhedrioni and the National Guard hadstrong ties to power including Shevardnadze and some elements of the oldnomenklatura who had helped set these groups up.29 According to Zurcher (2006, p.
104), Mkhedrioni ‘was the weapons-bearing arm of private businessmen-patriots who
put their private army at the service of the state’. This army obtained weapons fromstashes once belonging to the Soviet Army.
Mkhedrioni and the National Guard proved unruly and both engaged in mafia
activities. By November 1992 they were competing for resources to extort (Wheatley2005, p. 72). Mkhedrioni had become a competitor to the qurdebi in the protection
market: ‘in return for protecting enterprises…Ioseliani’s deputies took stakes in manyof the private businesses that got started in Georgia in 1993 and 1994’ (Areshidze
2007, p. 35). The country lacked any overarching authority with a monopoly of
violence. Instead the country was ‘divided into fiefdoms presided over by warlords
and their private armies…Mafia gangs and paramilitary thugs roamed the streets andterrorised towns and villages; corruption and violence were rife’ (Ekedahl &Goodman 2001 p. 263).
In 1992 then, the first year of the period for baptising the youngest cohort ofqurdebi, the country was at the height of its transitional turbulence, involved in armed
conflict in South Ossetia and witnessing the armed overthrow of Gamsakhurdia in
December 1991. It is remarkable to reflect on the fact that a qurdi, Ioseliani, by thispoint was practically running the country. One might expect this to lift the profile of29

Slider, (1997) suggests Guram Mgeladze the Chairman of the Georgian Agricultural Ministry was
instrumental in helping set Mkhedrioni up.

179the qurdebi considerably. According to Ioseliani himself Mkhedrioni ‘was a patrioticorganisation, but based on the thieves’ traditions’ (Ioseliani J. in Wheatley 2005, fn
20 pp 63-64), yet his unruly paramilitaries did not always respect the old ways of thequrdebi.
Arguably Ioseliani no longer needed the blessing or support of other qurdebi
as he had created his own power base in the form of Mkhedrioni, which according to
Ioseliani himself comprised 4,000 men nationwide (Wheatley 2005, p. 54). Thesemen were often young and violent, and many had nothing but contempt for thequrdebi: ‘I knew one qurdi who was beaten by the Mkhedrionisti [members ofMkhedrioni]…it was such a scandal! These guys used to be untouchable…. For thoseyoung guys in Mkhedrioni, it was revenge. They remembered, maybe at some point
they had had some conflict and the qurdi hadn’t resolved it in their favour or had hadthem punished, so when they had the chance they took revenge’ (R17). Whether or
not Ioseliani had turned against his own criminal fraternity, he may well have been
powerless to stop the competition with the qurdebi at this time. Wheatley (2005, p.
80) states: ‘other smaller criminal gangs (often referred to as “Mkhedrioni” but quite
clearly beyond the control of Jaba Ioseliani…) dominated at local level, typicallyoffering protection to local communities against marauding gangs.’
According to some, Ioseliani had relied on the goodwill of other qurdebi inrising to power and obtained resources for his goals, such as pursuing the war in
Abkhazia (R39).30 That goodwill had not been repaid. Another qurdi, Arsen
Mikeladze, arrived in Tbilisi from Moscow to find out what was happening.
Mikeladze’s assassination on that visit has been attributed to Ioseliani (R39). This

30

There is nothing to suggest that Georgian qurdebi were not also Georgian nationalists who wanted tosee a strong, independent Georgia. It has been reported in some places that the thieves-in-law of theSoviet Union did attempt to control nationalistic divisions as the Union moved towards collapse, andwere not wholly successful (Glonti & Lobjanidze 2004).

180

would fit with a more general trend of violence towards the qurdebi. Various
respondents attested to the fact that the qurdebi found themselves unrecognised by,
and in competition with, Mkhedrioni not to mention threatened by the huge rise inviolence generally in the republic. This is shown in Graph 7.1 that shows numbers ofqurdebi killed between the years 1988-2009.

Qurdebi Murdered
35
30
25
20
15
10
5

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

1989

1988

0

Year

Graph 7.1: numbers of qurdebi killed between the years 1988-2009.

Source: AOCU-T 2009

Though the data does not go far back enough to compare the 1980s with the
1990s it does suggest a point in time when there is a sudden spike and then rather
consistent high levels of killings of the qurdebi. From 1992 to 1993, the number ofqurdebi killed jumps over 120%, from 9 deaths to 20. The deaths then climb

181

remaining high with the peak coming in 1996 when 29 qurdebi were killed. From thispoint on numbers drop and never gain the same levels. However, the qurdebi still
endure spikes in the murder rate while Shevardnadze remains in power. After theRose Revolution crackdown most qurdebi were either incarcerated or left the country,
explaining the low number of killings after 2003.
The 1990s then ushered in a period of unprecedented levels of violence which,on the figures in the graph above, definitely touched the qurdebi. The year 1993 was
precisely the year in which Mkhedrioni was pursuing a campaign of violence, notonly in Abkhazia, but also across much of western Georgia. The war in Abkhazia had
been started in late 1992 and with that going badly for Tbilisi, a low-intensity civil
war between supporters of the former President Gamsakhurdia and the new
government’s forces led by Tengiz Kitovani and Ioseliani, had broken out in western
Georgia in 1993 (Zurcher 2006). In an infamous incident, Mkhedrioni sacked the
Mingrelian town of Zugdidi in Samegrelo as the ill-disciplined troops looted what
they could to take back with them to eastern Georgia.
Some respondents from Kutaisi claim that a similar fate was avoided in that
town, a couple of hours from Zugdidi, due to the intervention of the qurdebi who
declared Kutaisi their town (R30; R19). This sounds plausible, as Kutaisi is a
traditional stronghold of the qurdebi. Proportionately, Kutaisi has more qurdebi thanany other town in Georgia. In the 1990s particularly, there were lots of new qurdebi
emerging in Kutaisi. Whether or not the Kutaisi qurdebi really made an agreementwith Mkhedrioni specifically on this occasion is difficult to firmly establish, the point
holds however that the threats around this time were large enough and the murder rate
growing quick enough to start recruiting new men and this might account for the highnumbers of qurdebi from Kutaisi in the 1990s.

182A high-ranking police respondent (R12) believes that the competition between
Mkhedrioni and the qurdebi was particularly fierce in Rustavi and was mainly overcontrol of property. The respondent also identified Rustavi and Kutaisi as places
where inexperienced youngsters were being baptised without convictions. My data
show only one such case for Rustavi, but eight or almost half the total cases ofbaptism without prior conviction, for Kutaisi. The respondent (R12) also identifies thereason for this practice, and in doing so the mechanism that ties the level of violence
to the changes in recruitment practice: ‘at this point the qurdebi stopped being able tocontrol people so they tried to bring people into the ranks – to gain support and toprotect themselves from attack. By baptising someone, a qurdi must abide by thequrdebi rules which includes the forbiddance of hitting another qurdi, and murder isoutlawed. So they started accepting more and more people’ (R12). The incentive toself-preservation, on this view, was the mechanism linking violent competition withthe changing recruitment practices.
As shown in Graph 7.1 the qurdebi murder rate still grows even afterMkhedrioni was officially disbanded in 1995. The threats to the qurdebi then were not
only limited to paramilitary groups, but also the varying stripes of hardened criminal
who had started taking advantage of the state’s inability to prosecute criminal acts andthe demand for protection within society. As has been well recorded in Russia(Volkov 2002), anyone with a stock of violent capital could try and start up a mafia
group in the early 1990s. In the Imereti region, of which Kutaisi is the capital, thesituation was particularly dangerous:‘There was such chaos in places like Imereti…there was a group of armed robbersthat was operating in Imereti between 1993 and 1996. They were just a peasant bandof criminals. They were cruel, had no respect for anyone and that includes thequrdebi….Whatever they stole they would drink away that evening. It was a big

183

group, as many as 30 people, just stealing and beating….it was a threat to everyone
and certainly the qurdebi couldn’t control them.’ (R19)

Such groups did not just represent an existential threat to the qurdebi but
might also be seen as competitors in terms of recruitment. Young men might havebeen tempted to don a paramilitary uniform and set off for adventure and looting in
Abkhazia with the National Guard or Mkhedrioni, or perhaps simply join any ragtag
armed group that would take them on without asking for the same commitment or
normative standards as the qurdebi.
These challenges then may have put strain on the qurdebi’s recruitment
practices. Attracting violent individuals into the qurdebi’s ranks allowed better
control of them through the controls on violence built into the thieves’ code yet thisrisked corrupting the code itself through interaction with under-socialised individuals.
The common logic of safety in numbers in times of conflict is also present. This
strategy has been recorded in other places during mafia wars. For example, Paoli(2003) refers to the Cosa Nostra in southern Italy allowing an influx of new members
during a conflict with other organised crime groups during the 1970s.
Another example, pertinent to this study, is being played out at the present
time. In Moscow, two Georgian groups, one from Kutaisi and one from Tbilisi, are inserious conflict over territory and influence (see chapter 8). The Tbilisi group createda great deal of publicity when they baptised 10 new qurdebi in one day in prisons in
Russia on the 6th November 2008, which incidentally, and surely not accidentally,
coincided with the Soviet holiday for the police which is still celebrated in Russia(Criminalnaya 2008; AOCU-T 2008). This mass baptism can be interpreted as an
attempted to strengthen the Tbilisi side against the Kutaisi group.
I now turn to the second hypothesis explaining a lowering of barriers to entry184in recruitment. This concerns the degree to which mechanisms of punishment were
present to prevent abuses of the thieves’ code with respect to recruitment practices.
The execution of punishment may be variable due to larger costs accruing to the act ofpunishing or lack of information upon which to punish. Given the lowering of barriers
to entry we might expect that costs of punishment increased and that this facilitatedchange. I will argue below that this, to some extent, appears to be what occurredfollowing the collapse of the Soviet Union.

7.5.2 Agency and Opportunity Costs

Recruiting a young man without the requisite experience or knowledge of thethieves’ world is a punishable offence; it is not something any honest qurdi would
want to be associated with. Punitive sentences are passed at skhodka. A simple
punishment that would still be a huge blow to a qurdi’s honour and respect is to be
publicly slapped or beaten. The harshest punishment is of course death, but also forvery serious offences a qurdi can be ‘uncrowned’ or ‘de-sanctified’ [razsvechen’],that is have his title taken off him, sometimes known as to be ‘beaten round the ears’[byt’ po usham] (Gurov 1995, p. 109) or simply have his title removed for sometime,that is ‘stopped’ [garcherebuli in Georgian] or ‘have the brakes put on’ [tormozit’, inRussian] - with a view to having it reinstated once he has redeemed himself in future.
For example, the qurdi K. was ‘stopped’ for a few years after introducing a Russian asa qurdi when he in fact was not. Evidently such mistakes are threatening to thequrdebi, being able to read whether a person is truly a qurdi or not is just as importantas reading whether a new recruit has the qualities to be a qurdi. K. was eventuallyreinstated after showing up to a skhodka in a restaurant whilst serving a prison term
185

(AOCU-T 2004).
The process of punishment is relatively expensive to the punishers in that it
involves collecting information on people, calling a skhodka, attending the skhodka,
bringing evidence forward, deciding on a punishment and carrying out thatpunishment. Thus, it is a measure of last resort. It is clear, moreover, that somequrdebi simply have greater authority to pass sentences on their brethren than others.
The most authoritative qurdebi tend to be the older, more experienced ones. However,these more respected qurdebi, following the logic of converting reputational capital
into economic power, also tend to be the ones who have the most vested interests inbusiness and politics. During the 1990s they also tended to move out of Georgia as
they were in a position to exploit new market opportunities elsewhere. These were inplaces such as the brash, anomic Russian cities of Moscow, Petersburg and Nizhnii
Novogorod, the industry of the Don basin, and the big import-export markets of theRussian Far East. The problem this leads to is that although the older qurdebi are themost authoritative for means of passing judgement and sanctioning other qurdebi they
are also precisely the ones for whom the act of punishing incurs greater opportunity
costs (they have more business interests) and greater agency costs (they often operatefrom a long distance).
Turning first to the issue of distance and movement, possession of foreign
passports is one indicator of whether the older generations moved more than theyounger ones. In the early 1990s the Russian state implemented a policy of giving
Russian passports to citizens of all former Soviet countries registered in Russia.
Analysing passport ownership shows that age has a significant effect on possessing aforeign passport, where this was most often a Russian passport, though there werealso a few cases of Ukrainian, Israeli and Greek passports. As well as possessing

186

Georgian citizenship, of the youngest cohort 1992-2004 (N=110), only 25% claimed aforeign passport, whereas, this figure stood at 63% of the 1982-1991 (N=88) cohort.
From the 1972-1981 (N=57) cohort 72% claimed another passport, again usually
Russian. Of the oldest cohort however, 1952-1972 (N=23), only 43% claimed aforeign passport.
Thus, it seems that the qurdebi who were most optimally positioned to takeadvantage of foreign citizenship and travel to the former states of the Soviet Union
were those who were ‘baptised’ in the 1970s and 1980s, that is, in the two decades
immediately before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Claiming foreign citizenshipwas evidently easier then for those who were experienced but not too old to still havereal influence in the thieves’ world. The 1982-1991 cohort for example, had been
‘baptised’ for some years by the mid-1990s, spoke Russian, and most likely had
prison experience that might well have been served in Soviet Russia. Moreover, thepattern for possession of a foreign passport almost fits exactly with the current
residence of the Georgian qurdebi. Coding the data in the files into living in Georgia
or not living in Georgia (which in most cases means Russia) a Chi-square test showsthat there is a cohort effect on whether we would expect to find a Georgian qurdiabroad by 2004 or not as Table 7.2 shows.31

CohortGeorgia

AbroadTotal

31

It should be remembered that these figures are police data for the period up to 2004, following theRose Revolution the total figure of those now abroad would have to be greatly revised upwards.

187

1952-1971

13

9

22

1972-1981

17

39

56

1982-1991

36

47

83

1992-2004

83

27

110

Total

149

122

271

Table 7.2: location of qurdebi in 2004 by cohort

Source: AOCU-T & K 2004

The difference across cohorts is significant (p < 0.000), the effect of whichcohort a qurdi belongs to on whether they will be resident in Georgia in 2004 is of a
medium strength (df 3, Cramer’s V= 0.36). As with foreign passport ownership Table
7.2 shows that the two middle cohorts are more likely to live abroad.
Most of the movement appears to occur in the early 1990s. This may seemcounter-intuitive. It may have been assumed that it would be easier to move within
one country, the Soviet Union, than once that country had been split into manydifferent ones. However, the Soviet Union was heavily restrictive on the movement of
its citizens within the country for anything more than holidays and so it should not beso surprising that the collapse of the Soviet Union likely allowed greater mobility forsome qurdebi though this mobility depended on a multitude of other factors as well.
Such factors include numbers of contacts and levels of authority within the criminal
world, which are to some degree a function of age. Age also determines the ability totake advantage of contingencies such as lax citizenship rules at the beginning of the
1990s.
The factors that facilitated the emigration of the older and more experienced
qurdebi inadvertently created an increase in agency costs. Anyone who has become a188

qurdi is bestowed with a certain power of decision-making constrained as this iswithin the institutional context of the skhodka. Once baptised, a qurdi can recommend
and agitate for others to be baptised, decide how to use money from the obshchak,how conflicts should be resolved and so on. Simply put, when one qurdi (theprincipal) initiates another person he thereby endows another qurdi (the agent) withdecision-making authority and takes responsibility for the future performance of theagent. Agency costs here are constituted by the divergence of interests between theprincipal and the agent. The principal in this case tries to limit this divergence bydefining the appropriate interests of the agent and by monitoring his activities. The
problem of agency costs is manifested by contract mechanisms that attempt toovercome such costs. For example, in the case of the qurdebi, as will be discussed
elsewhere (chapter 9), commitment inducing mechanisms are employed to affectincentive structures preclude defection. A major mechanism for this is the use ofstatus contracts where incentives consist in the exchange of honour and respect andwhere generalised reciprocity is emphasised in which future payoffs are indefinite andlong-term (Paoli 2003). Such status contracts can only imperfectly mitigate agency
costs however. Instead such contracts operate to lower the probability of the principal
having to punish the agent and incur the costs that this represents.
However, there may be times when these punishment costs are necessarily
incurred to keep the agent’s actions in line with the interests of the principal. One
such time might be when the agent-qurdi decides to become a principal himself andbaptise someone new. As has been touched upon, due to the violent turbulence
experienced in Georgia during transition it might be argued that it was in theprincipal’s interests to lower barriers to entry and allow the agent to recruit whoever
he likes. However, if the principal happens to be in Moscow then he is less likely to189pay as much attention to the problems of violent competition in Georgia unless his
interests are directly threatened and, therefore, may still demand high barriers toentry. The agent may recruit anyway against this demand and with little regard toformal procedure. At this point punishment should ensue, however for the principal,
living in faraway Moscow it is difficult to firstly, find out about the transgression andsecondly, ensure that a corresponding punishment is successfully carried out.
This is a plausible scenario for what happened in Georgia. Those qurdebi
remaining there felt an incentive to lower barriers to entry due to increased levels ofviolence. Those in Moscow may or may not have understood this need but in any case
did not have sufficient incentive to stop it happening. Furthermore, during this periodof wild capitalism the money to be made from the privatization process, especially in
Russia, could be massive. Monitoring and punishment of younger qurdebi back in
Georgia for corrupt recruitment practices would represent similarly massive
opportunity costs for respected qurdebi. Money and time were being spent taking over
big industries, casinos and banks rather than following what was going on back home.
Increased agency costs and opportunity costs suggest that qurdebi were lesslikely to monitor the recruitment practices of new qurdebi in Georgia. As Reuter(2005) writes, the principal’s ‘ability to control [the agent] is reduced when the agent
is in a remote location….since [the principal] has weaker information and control offorce.’ This is borne out in the case of the qurdebi by the appearance of an extremely
controversial practice: buying the title of kanonieri qurdi. Slang terms have emergedthat are mainly connected to Georgian qurdebi and signify those who were neverbaptised ‘thievishly’ [po vorovskomu] but instead simply bought the title forthemselves. These are apel’sini [oranges], lavrushnniki [laurels] and samozvantsi[self-declarers]. A lot has been written about this with some commentators refusing to190believe that it ever occurred amongst the qurdebi. As one Russian police officer[polkovnik] put it (in Modestov 2008): “All this talk about titles being bought,
apel’sini, and so on is complete nonsense. Buying the title of thief-in-law isforbidden. It’s not a position in the civil service, you know!”
Such scepticism is well founded. Future qurdebi pay into the obshchak prior to
becoming qurdebi and this should not be confused with buying the title in the direct
sense of paying a made man a significant lump sum for his personal use in return for a
recommendation at a skhodka. However, according to the expert interviews conducted
this practice did happen. One clear-cut instance involved a qurdi from Tbilisi who
paid to another big name qurdi to get a recommendation for his younger brother tobecome a qurdi too. The police estimate $50,000 was spent on securing this support(R5; R10).
There are many press reports that attest to this practice occurring also. One
report cites a ‘young bandit’ paying $300,000 for his title (Nikulina 1999). Varese(2001) also mentions instances of this in Russia, and this is corroborated by a Russian
inmate quoted in Lambert (2003 p.111). This suggests then that the monitoring ofthievish practices had similarly declined in Russia. This follows when we consider
that it was mainly the profits to be made in Russia that increased opportunity costs onmonitoring for the qurdebi in most instances and so, presumably, Russian vory also
faced such costs on policing their boundaries.
The argument might be made that a candidate who invests a lot of money toacquire the title may still be signalling skills and dedication. The amount of money
merely signals this dedication rather than the length of time in prison.32 The problem
with this interpretation is that the thieves-in-law always purported to shun materialism

32

Again, I am grateful to Dr. Heather Hamill for raising this issue.

191therefore buying the title is strictly against the rules. Offering large sums of money tobe appointed to a normal job would similarly set off alarm bells, though it might very
well signal a strong desire and dedication for the position in question. Signals are
drawn from cultural milieus made up of conventions and symbols, in this way they
are readable based on the consistent beliefs of the receivers as to their meaning(Gambetta 2009a). The signal of paying money in this case is not readable as a signalof anything criminal to the receiver in the context in which it is produced. Thusbuying the qurdi title shows a corruption of the criminal institution rather than simply
a switch in the method of signalling.
Certainly then, buying the title is no replacement, yet, for other traditional
criminal signals such as a prison history. Buying and selling the title has been warned
against by authoritative qurdebi (AOCU-T 2004), suggesting that this practice exists
due to a lack of actual punishing of such transgressions. The fact that there has been
discussion of the apel’sini problem at skhodki suggests that the qurdebi do indeed findthis practice worrying. It can have serious consequences for the massively important
asset of reputation (see chapter 10). From the Italian-American mafia, Gambetta(2009a, p. 206) gives the example of Frank Scalice who was shot to death for selling
memberships in 1957. One press report (Nikulina 1999) strikes at the problematicconsequences that has disturbed the older qurdebi: ‘as noted by experts, in the main
the title [of thief-in-law] is bought by Georgian ex-patriots [vykhodtsi]…the quantityof baptised criminals is growing, whereas the level of their authority in the criminal
world is declining.’ In chapter 10 I turn to precisely this issue of the qurdebi’s level ofauthority and reputation in the face of these significant changes to recruitment
practices.

192

7.6 Conclusion

The precarious balance in maintaining barriers to entry at the right level
despite exogenous pressures is evidently an issue for the qurdebi in Georgia.
Equilibrium in sorting candidates using the prison relies upon a cost incurred to thecandidate that itself relies upon the strength of the state to punish. When this strength
weakens, the equilibrium is affected. Furthermore, other external pressures likeincreasing competition and internal changes such as increased agency and opportunity
costs for would-be punishers distort outcomes and instead of a perfect sorting
equilibrium a semi-sorting result occurs in which those without the right qualities may
become made men. The possible explanations I have suggested for this should be
explored further.
As Tilly (2006) argues, a blurring of social and symbolic boundaries is very
dangerous for the viability of a trust network and certainly, while a lowering ofbarriers to entry was perhaps necessary in the short term, the long-term effects on thequrdebi’s resilience are not so clear. A probable consequence is a negative effect on
reputation. Substandard members may affect the overall high criminal status of thegroup and the reputation of other members through association which can bedevastating for a competitive edge in the protection market and societal support for
the qurdebi in general (see chapter 10).
However, the change in barriers to entry need not be permanent. Risingcompetition, opportunity and agency costs can be offset through other adaptations
such as change in internal structure and organisation. I turn to this issue in the next
chapter.

193

8. Between Networks and Hierarchies: Structure andInternal Relations‘“Vor-v-zakone”…is a particular category of criminal-recidivist characterised by two
features: 1) steady “principled” parasitism; 2) organisation.’

Aleksander Gurov Krasnaya Mafiya (1995, p. 109)

Approaches to Russian organised crime often see an amorphous ‘criminal
world’ or ‘organised crime system’ corrupting whole societies and generations(Sterling 1994; Oleinik 2003; Glonti & Nordin 2005). For Dolgova (2003), Russianorganised crime is a qualitatively new phenomenon distinct from tightly boundcriminal associations or criminal organisations in other parts of the world. Instead, it
is a ‘complex system’ that has its own rules, security, courts, and politics. It attracts
large sections of young people, structures society and affects wider social relations(Dolgova, 2003 p. 370). This hints at an all-powerful mafia-state peering out frombehind the façade of legitimate power (Darchiashvili, 2006).
Perhaps this is not as fanciful as it may first appear, after all thieves-in-law seethemselves as leaders of a wide-ranging, transnational criminal world. Dolgova (2003,
p. 359) writes: ‘Interviews with 17 ‘thieves-in-law’ and ‘avtoriteti’ [criminal
authorities] showed that they consider themselves the leaders not only of members ofconcrete criminal formations or of the criminal setting in prisons, but of a wider
criminal world.’ Thieves-in-law existed throughout the Soviet Union, historically
networked with each other and claimed it as a duty to spread the thieves’ idea. Yet the194notion that they effortlessly impose the morals of the criminal world and carve up andcontrol parts of countries through criminal gangs committed to the thieves’
understandings should be questioned. The thieves-in-law, like any club, organisationor community, experience problems of governance: coordination and regulation,boundary maintenance and monitoring. Organisational structure is an importantmechanism for negotiating these issues however it may vary from time to time andplace to place.
This chapter addresses the changing internal relations and structure amongst
the kanonieri qurdebi. It is argued that processes of factionalisation and centralisation
within factions have occurred. Certain hypotheses are developed to explain thesechanges and data put forward. It is argued, along with Tilly (2006), that theseprocesses can have variable effects on resilience, affecting this negatively in the longterm. First, however, I present the structure of the thieves’ world outside prison as it isclassically envisaged.

8.1 Traditional Structure of the Thieves’ World Outside Prison

Hierarchies that developed in prison affected the structure of the so-called
thieves’ world outside prison. Figure 8.1 below (based on Glonti & Lobjanidze 2004,
p. 163) shows how goodfellas (horoshlaki or kai bichebi), caretakers (shesterki) andfighters (boeviki) populated organised crime groups run by overseers (makarublebi or
smotryashchie) on behalf of thieves-in-law. The thieves-in-law themselves sought out
patrons in politics or law enforcement (see chapter 6) and networked with otherthieves who in turn headed organised criminal groups (OCGs). Thieves-in-law
195

coordinated through the institutions of the communal fund, the obshchak, and thieves’‘courts’ or skhodki over and above the individual actors.

Criminal Community
Obshchak

PatronThief-in-law

Other Thieves-in-law

Organised Criminal Group/s
Overseers
Goodfellas, Caretakers
Fighters

Other OCGs

Skhodka

Figure 8.1: Structure of ‘Thieves’ World’ outside the Prison

In this way the hierarchical structure of the prison community became
reproduced outside the prison walls. On the outside, groups underneath the thieves-inlaw looked more like structured mafias, with organised crime groups andbrotherhoods (bratva in Russian or dzmaoba in Georgian) made up of goodfellas who
were subordinated to criminal authorities. ‘Overseers’ look after the finances of thegroups under the command of a thief-in-law and collected the dues for the obshchak.
This chain of command is described elsewhere (Varese, 2001), and appears toresemble the hierarchy of a Sicilian mafia family. Unlike the Sicilian mafia however,those below the level of thieves-in-law are not considered ‘made men’, they have notbeen through any initiation ritual until they reach the highest rung. This is adistinguishing feature of the thieves-in-law; as opposed to a commission of bosses
convened out of necessity due to conflict, thieves-in-law were a ready made networkof made men that continued to formally follow the same set of rules, pool resources,
convene and coordinate activities. This network of top-level thieves looks
organisationally flat with every thief formally equal to any other and exhibits neither
196

the features of a traditional hierarchy nor a collaborative institution such as a market
or labour union, but a trust network as defined by Tilly (2006; see chapter 2).
The problem with analyses that present the thieves’ world as a hierarchicallyorganised system with coordinated and networking bosses is that the picture is very
static. It fails to look at organisational structure as something that is constantly
impacted on by the environment and affected by other factors such as changes in sizeand complexity of the organisation. Furthermore, it fails to give an adequate
discussion of coordination and control within the organisational structure as elements
in flux and problematic. I now discuss the issue of structure, control and change withdirect reference to the concept of trust networks and how this might be utilised in a
discussion of organised criminals such as the kanonieri qurdebi.

8.2 Structure, Coordination and Transformations in Trust Networks

Tilly identified internal relations within the trust network as a major arena inaffecting its survival. Internal relations may be seen as structural issues, dealing withquestions of the establishment of ‘rights, obligations, transfers of resources, sharedactivities, collective controls, and divisions of labour’ (Tilly, 2006 p. 58). Cohesion ininternal relations within a trust network is maintained by commitment mechanisms
such as self-sacrifice to the collective good, investment in network ties, rejection of
old identities for new ones and burning bridges with the outside world. Rewards andpunishments may also be deployed to alter incentives and behaviour of participants(see chapter 9).
The coordination and governance of internal relations within a trust network
however are threatened by such dynamics as factionalisation into cliques,197

centralisation around a charismatic leader, horizontal ties becoming vertical andunequal, and attraction between members weakening. Furthermore, over-emphasising
one type of incentive - capital, coercion or commitment - over and above the others
can have negative consequences for the trust network. These types of transformations
threaten the viability of the trust network, and also show how the network form oforganisation acquires characteristics of authoritative organisations and collaborative
institutions depending on the dynamics shaping the network. These dynamics are
documented in Table 8.1 below where I have laid out changes in terms of their effects
on the viability of the trust network.

Aspect of Network
Internal relations

Type of Change
Decreasein

Effects of Change

mutual Decreasing viability

attraction
Decrease in equality of ties Decreasing viability
Formation of factions
CreationofcentreDecreasing viability

charismatic Increaseinshort-term

viability, decrease in longterm

Shift towards capital as Increase in vulnerability to
incentivecompetingopportunities

for capital
Shift towards commitment Increase in vulnerability to
as incentive

ideological divisions

Shift towards coercion as Increase in vulnerability to
incentive

attraction of less coercive
organisations

Table 8.1: internal changes in trust networks

Adapted from Tilly (2006 p. 60)

198

In utilising these theoretical insights, the kanonieri qurdebi are presented as atrust network in flux and so exhibit characteristics of other forms of governance andcoordination over time. The subsequent discussion in this chapter focuses on two of
the issues in Table 8.1: factionalism, and centralisation around charismatic characterswithin these factions. These issues indirectly touch on problems of mutual attractionand equality of ties in the trust network. The reliance on capital, coercion andcommitment as incentives is dealt with in a subsequent chapter (see chapter 9). Shifts
in the above features listed in Table 8.1 affect the survival of the qurdebi as a trust
network. The way that the qurdebi organise, coordinate and govern themselves is a
crucial aspect of their resilience and ability to survive. Yet Tilly (2006) only describes
the changes and their effects on the viability of trust networks without fully
explicating why they occur. Thus, as well as describing changes in internal relations
this chapter utilises theories of organisational change in identifying possible
explanations for explaining these changes. Firstly however, I identify the following
trends: a move towards factionalism, and centralisation within these factions alongwith a subsequent decline in the equality of ties in the network.

8.3 Factionalism

In principle the qurdebi organise flatly, distributing ties equally and notdeferring authority to a central figure. The practice of holding meetings known as
skhodki, which allow matters to be discussed and voted on, attests to this. Gurov(1995) writes that, ‘there were no direct leaders. The organising and controlling organ199

was the thieves’ skhodka. This could be called by any one of the members of thecommunity. The avtoriteti [those of criminal standing] used these to their advantage.
Skhodki subdivided locally and regionally.’ Furthermore, all ethnic or national
distinctions between members were subsumed by subordination to the thieves’ codethat distinguishes people only on the degree of their surrender to the thieves’ idea. Yet
despite these democratic processes and ideals of equality before the thieves’ law, thethieves’ world was breaking up along ethnic lines as early as the 1980s. Before this,ethnic distinctions amongst the thieves-in-law had not been outstanding. According tosome sources the thieves-in-law openly discussed and tried to resist factionalism
along ethnic lines as nationalisms in the Soviet republics started to weaken theoverarching power of the Communist Party (Glonti & Lobjanidze 2004, p. 121). As
has been touched upon elsewhere (chapter 1) however, differences began to emerge
amongst the thieves-in-law and these had been officially noted by the MVD by 1985
(MVD-A, 0033/1985). The Georgian qurdebi began to stand out from Slavic vory
particularly in their attitude to the thieves’ code.
However, the Georgians themselves split again into territorially based cliques.
When exactly these cliques became tight, noticeable distinctions is not clear; it is ofcourse possible that they existed prior to the 1990s. However, these factions are in thepresent day very noticeable particularly now the qurdebi are outside Georgia andoperating in Russia due to the post-Rose Revolution crackdown; these cliques aredescribed as separate organised crime groups in the Russian press and are centred on
renowned leaders (Kompromat 1999; Russkii Newsweek 2009). There are a numberof indicators that can be gleaned from the data that point to factionalism amongst theGeorgians, these are: the concentration of qurdebi from three main towns; the use of200

locative nicknames to indicate membership to one of the factions from these towns;
and the explicit conflicts between the groups. I will look at each indicator below.

8.3.1 Population Centres and Locative Nicknames

The three major Georgian groups operating mainly in Russia in the present
day are known by their Russian nicknames: the Tbilisskaya, the Kutaisskaya, and theSukhumskaya. These groupings or factions within the Georgian qurdebi basethemselves on the Georgian towns of Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Sukhumi and theirsurroundings respectively. The latter is in the now de facto independent territory of
Abkhazia and the qurdebi from this region are mainly ethnic Georgians who now livein Russia after the Abkhaz ethnically cleansed the Georgians from the region
following the Georgia-Abkhazia war in 1992-1993. Indeed, qurdebi from Sukhumi
have a much greater rate of transplantation to Russia than qurdebi from other parts ofGeorgia prior to the Rose Revolution in 2003 (AOCU-T 2004) and the 1992-1993 war
most likely accounts for this. Tbilisi and Kutaisi are the two largest towns in Georgia
and have both been capital cities at some point in Georgia’s history.
Map 8.1 below shows the population of regions in Georgia and the number ofqurdebi from each according to the police reports of 2004. Kutaisi is the capital of
Imereti and Sukhumi is the capital of Abkhazia.

201

Map 8.1 showing populations by region and numbers of kanonieri qurdebi in each
Source: Anti-Organised Crime Unit, Special Operations Department, Tbilisi 2004

As can be seen from Map 8.1 Tbilisi, Imereti and Abkhazia produced thegreatest numbers of qurdebi and this makes their local groupings the most noticeableand distinct in the present day. Other areas also produced their own factions, forexample, Samegrelo, but the most coherent are those from Kutaisi (capital of Imereti),
Tbilisi and Sukhumi. Curiously, some areas such as Kakheti produce hardly any
qurdebi whilst other areas are over-producing. Kutaisi and the Imereti region inparticular have a disproportionate number of qurdebi and this region is renowned in
Georgia for being the most ‘thievish’. Kutaisi particularly, with one seventh of
Tbilisi’s population, has two-thirds of the capital’s qurdebi number (just over 50
qurdebi) and roughly one qurdi for every 3,000 people compared to Tbilisi which has
a ratio of 1:13,000. According to one Kutaisi-based lawyer (Dyatlikovich 2007), ‘here
the criminal group was always considered strongest in the country, and local residents
confirm that they have on every street their own vor-v-zakone [kanonieri qurdi].’Indeed Kutaisi has a special reputation, the local prosecutor claims that: ‘there are202

practically no businessmen, citizens, who are not disturbed by these people [thequrdebi]’ (Day.az 2007). In Kutaisi, locals say that in terms of the thieves’ world
Odessa is the mother city, Rostov the father, and Kutaisi the son (R37). This refers to
the historical claim that Odessa and Rostov were the first cities to nurture the thieves’culture. In the case of Tbilisi and Sukhumi the number of qurdebi might simply be
proportionate to their size as they are both big towns.
The localism of the groupings is reflected in the use of locative nicknames. Of
the 278 cases in the police files analysed, 33 have no nickname, 89 have a diminutive
or such like which strictly speaking fall outside the definition for nicknames but arerecorded in the files, and for 51 cases I could not deduce the origin of the nickname
for certain. Ignoring the cases where the meaning is unclear, those which have nonickname or those where just the first name or diminutive is used, leaves 105 cases
where the meaning of the nickname is clear. Of these then, locative nicknames werethe most common. Of the 105 nicknames, 22% were locative against those nicknames
describing psychological, behavioural or physical features in second place with 20%.
Locative nicknames involve a first name and a Russian adjectival ending denoting aplace name, for example, Rezo Tbiliskii (Rezo of Tbilisi), Gia Kutaiskii (Gia of
Kutaisi), or Merab Sukhumskii (Merab of Sukhumi). The location referred to is aqurdi’s place of origin though it is not only the towns of Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Sukhumi
that are represented, for example, Shalva Honskii comes from the small Imeretian
town of Honi though this would probably affiliate him with neighbouring Kutaisi.33

33

Other nicknames: 20% of nicknames had connotations with behavioural, psychological and physical features,for example, Givi Nos (Russian for Givi the Nose), Givi Tolstii (Rus. Fat Givi) and Chichika (Georgian for
Chirpy). In terms of behavioural traits it is not difficult to guess what Mususa (Ladykiller) and Romeo have areputation for. Third, at 18%, were nicknames that made some variation on the name or patronymic of the person.
For example, Khmelidze becomes Khmelo (sounding like ‘hops’ as in beer in Russian and ‘dry’ in Georgian) andthe surname Bakiya becomes Bakha-Bakha. Fourth, at 13%, were animals including Gorila (gorilla), Shoshia(starling), Kvatiya (duck), Meliya (fox) and one otherworldly being, Chinka (demon). Fifth with 11% were thosenamed after objects, such as Lursman (Nail) and Gocha Kurka (Gocha the Stone). In the main, the reasons behindthese were hard to pin down but probably again have something to do with physical or psychological factors.

203

Those with locative nicknames, perhaps unsurprisingly, also tended to be thequrdebi in possession of foreign passports. Of the 23 with locative nicknames only 7
did not have a foreign passport. Having a locative nickname presumably enables
mobile qurdebi to be recognised by where they are from and also which faction
within the thieves’ world they might belong to as this tends to be drawn up along
geographic lines. Transplanting abroad, it is assumed that locative nicknames help todistinguish between Georgian groups operating outside their home territory.

8.3.2 Internecine Conflict

The level of competition between the groups points to the fact that they doindeed exclude each other and, thus, form factions. The Kutaisskaya and Tbilisskaya
as of 2005 have continued a simmering conflict for a variety of reasons. A raid on askhodka held in the Klyazminskoe region of Moscow in July 2008 detained just under
40 qurdebi who were, with the exception of a few Slavs, exclusively from the Kutaisi
and Sukhumi regions with no one present from Tbilisi (Criminalnaya 2008b). The
discussions at the skhodka were allegedly on the topic of gaining pre-eminence in thecriminal world over the Tbilisskaya (Schwirtz 2008; Criminalnaya 2008a). The
conflict reached an apparent crisis point when the legendary Russian mobster
Vyacheslav Ivan’kov, known as Yaponchik, was shot in Moscow in July 2009 andlater died of his wounds in hospital in October 2009 (Glinsky 2009; Kruter 2009).

Some, such as Chinchila (little jug), are most likely connected with Georgian traditions of heavy wine-drinking.
Sixth with 9% were those categorised as positions or functions within companies or hierarchies such as Batiya(gaffer), Cherman (chairman), Bugalter (accountant), and the rather more sinister Palachi (hangman) and one
simply called Mafia. Five percent of nicknames were simply a patronymic or variation of this. Finally, 2% landed
outside these categories including one Shishkin who we might assume was named after the famous 19th century
Russian landscape painter whose works were popularised on the wrappers of a certain brand of confectionary
during Soviet times.

204

Yaponchik had sided with the Tbilisskaya in their conflict with the Kutaisskaya andthis set off fears of a new mob war in Russia between the Georgian groups (Galeotti
2009; Nasyrov 2009). The Kutaisskaya and Sukhumskaya are known to have better
relations probably due to the personal working relationship between their two leadingmen (Russkii Newsweek 2009). I give the history of the conflict below, based on
Spanish police data and Russian news reports, as an indication of friction that
stemming from and solidifying the factions within the Georgian thieves’ world.
Major conflict between the Kutaisskaya and Tbilisskaya appears to have taken
on an open form by 2005. In that year, the central figure in the Kutaisskaya, Tariel
Oniani, returned from Spain to Moscow after the Spanish police’s Operation ‘Wasp’
targeted his activities there (Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office of Spain,2005). As a consequence of this operation, Zakari Kalashov was arrested in June 2006
in Dubai on the request of the Spanish authorities. Kalashov is a powerful qurdi withconnections with serious Russian organised crime groups such as the Solntsevo. A
Swiss police report also connected him to legitimate companies such as Russian oil
giant LukOil (Forbes Russia 2009; Guardian 2010)34. Following Kalashov’s arrest
and Oniani’s return to Moscow, Oniani clashed with Aslan Usoyan, known as Ded
Hasan, who is a central leader of the Tbilisskaya, over control of Kalashov’s businessinterests. On top of this, the conflict was allegedly fuelled by other elements such ascompetition over the trafficking of heroin through Moscow and sharing theconstruction market for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics (Gondusov 2009;
Kommersant 2009; Kruter 2009). As a result Yaponchik, who had just been released
from prison when Oniani arrived back in Moscow, was called in to help resolve theconflict and he ruled in favour of Ded Hasan (Galeotti 2009).
34

This report was cited as a reason to block LukOil from buying a large stake in Spanish oil company
Repsol.

205

Both Oniani and Ded Hasan then called skhodki to make claims against theother and have each other ‘uncrowned’. The Tbilisskaya allegedly sent out a thieves’order, known as malyava, which found its way into the Russian press. It was signed
by Usoyan, Yaponchik and other authoritative qurdebi denouncing Oniani and callingfor him to be dealt with ‘accordingly’ which most likely means death (Kommersant2009). Some have questioned the authenticity of this order however. Then, in June
2009, Oniani was arrested and charged with the kidnapping and extortion of abusinessman. A month later Yaponchik was shot and later died of his injuries in
hospital in October; Oniani’s men have been blamed for the shooting by those close
to the conflict. Since then the Tbilisskaya appears to have gained the upper hand.
Oniani’s trial went ahead and he was sentenced to 10 years (Rosbalt 2010); his
associates have been assassinated in various parts of Europe or have gone into hiding.
However, at the end of 2010, an unsuccessful attempt was made on Usoyan’s life incentral Moscow suggesting the conflict is far from over.
This story of conflict is indicative of how the territorial factions amongst theGeorgian qurdebi are, in the present day at least, strongly solidified. The groups are
known to cooperate and negotiate with each other yet the level of this cooperation
depends on the circumstances and can move into conflict, as has been the case since2005. The effect of transplantation to Russia and elsewhere on strengthening or
weakening the factions is unclear however it is surely a factor. The above story
detailing the recent clash has introduced the dominating figures of Tariel Oniani andAslan Usoyan and has thereby hinted at the de-stabilising role played bycentralisation, or as Tilly (2006) has it, the formation of charismatic centres in a trust
network. It is to this aspect that I now turn.

206

8.4 Within-Faction Centralisation

The formation of clearly defined factions of smaller size is a structural changethat might bring with it new forms of coordination. This section is concerned withlooking at this issue and specifically the degree to which organisational changes havecreated hierarchies amongst the formally equal qurdebi and centralisation roundstrongmen within factions.
For all the professed equality of ties amongst the qurdebi this is rarely
achieved in practice. Police respondents believe that there are rankings within thequrdebi’s relations, ‘qurdebi are in principle equal, but actually there are big
differences between them in terms of status’ (R9). However, according to the police,
no qurdi will acknowledge these differences, no qurdi will stand up for anyone else
upon entering a room for example. Other respondents backed up this viewpoint:‘Someone of my age, lived to be 50 or 60 and he’s remained a qurdi all this time,
well, it means he’s a genuine qurdi, yes? And the other guy, 20, and he’s a qurdi, wellcompared to me it doesn’t have such meaning. If you know some young qurdi, yousay, you are a baby, live as a qurdi 30 years or so and you’ll have the same authority
as me - if you can keep your name as a qurdi that is….’ (R18).

This also speaks to the fact that the threat of expulsion or ‘uncrowning’ isconstantly present, the qurdebi jostle for position in the network and are constantly
looking to undermine and outdo one another (Chalidze 1977, p. 46). ‘You think it iseasy being a qurdi, but it isn’t, they have to be so careful down to the littlest detail inwhat they say and what they do, because there is always someone out for them, they
constantly try to remove each other’s status and get rid of each other’ (R10).

207

The threat of uncrowning in the network and the fact that some have morevoice than others give an incentive to find a patron. This is because a potential patron‘knows all the authoritative guys, he can gather a skhodka, sit you down…[so it’s
good to] say, I respect you, I don’t need to take a cut from this shop, you takeit…Then if you need something, he’s already on your side’ (R18). Taking on a patronleads to hierarchical structuring and lowering of equality of ties amongst the qurdebi
however and for Tilly (2006) this is detrimental to the survival of a trust network.
This instituting of vertical ties has the danger of leading to centralization as
patron-client relations within the network funnel upwards towards the mostauthoritative members. As we have seen, the Kutaisskaya and Tbilisskaya groups
have become centred on two individuals: Tariel Oniani and Aslan Usoyan (Ded
Hasan). According to Tilly (2006, p. 72), the creation of charismatic centres canincrease commitment of members in a trust network. However, it can be detrimental
to participation in day-to-day decision-making and management within the network.
Furthermore, over-reliance on one individual can create problems during succession
or when something bad befalls that individual. This can be seen in the case of Oniani
who was arrested in June 2009 on kidnapping charges. This has left the Kutaisskaya
as a group in a weak position relative to other groups in Russia and has led the press
to declare Ded Hasan as the now most prominent ‘godfather’ of the Russian
underworld (Russkii Newsweek 2009). Thus, concentrating power around a central
figure can make the trust network more viable in the short-term though unstable in thelong-term. In the next section, I look at the issue of centralization in more detail.
Whilst the press reports suggest that the Georgian qurdebi factions are highly
centralised, I will utilise police data and develop a network analysis to look at how
centralised the Kutaisskaya faction is, and whether it itself is factionalised.

2088.4.1 Network Analysis: Centralization in the Kutaisskaya

I now try to present in a visual form the links between the central figures in
one of the factions, the Kutaisskaya, by turning to the data collected from the police
files on the criminal contacts of qurdebi from Imereti and in particular of those fromthe town of Kutaisi. In the Kutaisi files, the data was not always complete. The files
list contacts and in all cases these contacts were noted as ‘associates in crime,’
however the detail concerning the nature of the contact was variable. In some cases it
might be a relative, or simply a member of an organized crime group. In most cases, it
was stated whether the contact was a ‘so-called’ kanonieri qurdi or not, in some cases
the data reported if the contact was a follower of the thieves’ traditions though notactually a qurdi. Naturally, the files often reported Kutaisi qurdebi as connected toeach other as well as to qurdebi from other towns, and to ordinary people who
associated with the individuals in committing crime. I limited my analysis to Kutaisi
and this gave me 52 files to work with (AOCU-K 2004).
I tabulated contacts by listing all names mentioned in the files and marking
their ‘associates in crime’. If B was mentioned as an associate in a file on A, I would
add this as A’s contact and then compile the contacts from the file on B separately. If,
in the file on B, there was a contact X for whom I possessed no information I would
list X as a contact of B and unless X appeared in other files he would remain aperiphery figure, if there was subsequently no file on X then he would be excluded
from the network analysis. In this way, a core group was formed made up of those on
whom there were police reports and their interconnections with each other. All of
209these were initiated men, that is, they were all kanonieri qurdebi. I created a databasefrom the files and put these into the social network analysis computer program
UCINET 6 to visually represent how the network connected up and to test certain
ideas about how the network might be structured (Sparrow 1991; Scott 2000; Coles
2001). The data enabled a focus only on ‘structural’ form and patterns across actors
rather than ‘interactional’ components of the network such as the nature and strengthof the relationships (Coles 2001). Furthermore, the extent of the network was definedby the police files and only focuses on relations between Kutaisi qurdebi, evidently
the network in reality would span outwards getting larger and larger (Sparrow 1991).
Using functions to test the centrality of actors I was able to identify thoseactors with the highest number of contacts (known as actors’ ‘degree’), and also thebrokers in the network, that is, those who act as middlemen for putting the actors in
the network in touch with each other (‘betweenness’ – see Scott 2000). Furthermore, I
was able to break the network down into interconnected sub-groups or factions. By
using the ‘ego network’ function, I was able to redraw the networks in terms of thecontacts of only a few actors at a time (Ibid). In this way I was able to break the
analysis down to look at the contacts of the cohorts that were ‘baptized’ as qurdebi
between the years 1982-1991 and 1992-2004 as well as factoring into the analysis theplace of residence of the actors as it was then in 2004. For each of these networks I
calculated the density to understand how tightly interconnected these networks are.
Finally, I put the degree and betweenness scores for the actors back into the statisticalprogram SPSS in order to analyse the results against other variables such as cohort,place of residence, and number of convictions.
Figure 8.2 below shows the interconnections between the qurdebi of Kutaisi
as they relate to each other. Names have been removed and replaced with a letter V

210

for the Russian vor meaning thief-in-law; a number is given for each case (N=52) anda letter is given denoting which ‘baptism’ cohort an actor is from, that is in which
period an actor was initiated into the qurdebi fraternity (see chapter 3 for ajustification of the cut-off points): Cohort A = 1992-2004, B = 1982-1991, C = 19721981, D = 1953-1971. The size of the square or ‘node’ for each actor represents how
well connected the actor is, that is, the number of lines connecting to that node. Usingthe ‘factions’ function the network splits into three different subgroups based on how
densely interconnected the nodes are. The colours of the nodes represent which
faction

the

actor

belongs

to,

red,

blue

or

black.

211

Figure 8.2 showing the interrelations of actors within the Kutaisskaya faction

Firstly, this figure shows immediately that the Kutaisskaya group does notcontain equally connected members. Secondly, there are dense collections ofinterconnecting nodes that suggest factions within the network. The faction functionin the UCINET 6 programme produces an algorithm that calculates factions based on
the density of ties between sets of actors and splits the actors based on the density ofgroupings uncovered by the algorithm. Here three factions were produced, eachfaction networks more with actors of the same faction than with others.
These factions fit with and are likely produced to some degree by conflicts
between individuals within the Kutaisskaya that are described in the police reports.
For example, at a thieves’ meeting (skhodka) V9C in blue in the diagram was shot
and wounded by another qurdi (not depicted in Figure 8.2) following an argument
over the use of the communal fund (obshchak) for the purposes of a funeral.
Consequently, this fight created divisions which centred on certain powerfulindividuals within the network. Certain members of the black faction including V31B
and V41C supported the shooter in this conflict even though using a gun at a skhodka
breached the thieves’ code. This might have helped solidify distinctions between
black and blue groups. Furthermore, V13B in red, is known to have a conflict with
V6B in blue below over the latter’s lifestyle, though V13B himself was criticized for
his extravagant house. Thus, the sub-groupings represented above seem to correspondto information on conflicts within the network given by the police files.
The factions within the Kutaisi group also correspond to some degree withgenerational splits. Of those in the red faction (N=17) 65% are from the youngest
cohort of qurdebi, that is, those that were baptized as qurdebi after 1992, whereas, ofthe blue faction (N=21), 76% were baptized before 1992. The black faction (N=14) issplit 43% after 1992 and 57% before. This suggests that age groups tend to network
more with each other.
The factions also correspond to differences in transplantation, as the reds tend
to represent those who stayed in Kutaisi and the blues those who moved to Russia. Of
the qurdebi in Russia from this sample 52% are from the blue faction against 26%
from the red faction. Of the qurdebi that stayed in Kutaisi 44% is from the red factionand 27% from the blue. This suggests that the younger qurdebi tend to stay put more(see also chapter 7), are usually the ones operating organised crime groups in Kutaisi
according to the police (AOCU-K 2004), and network with each other more than withthose who have left the town as might well be expected. Though conflict is present
then, these factions should not be seen as being caused only by this but also other
differences such as age and location that determine the network of an individual.
In terms of centralization, the network does not seem particularly centred on
one particular individual and this appears to go against the argument that the qurdebi
network broke into factions which then, as smaller units, became centralized
themselves. However, the different cliques within the Kutaisskaya each have central
characters, these are given below along with their centralization scores, which is
calculated as the number of ties they have in the network:

FACTION QURDINO.

OF QURDI

TIES

NO.

OF QURDI

TIES

NO.

OF

TIES

Red

V1A

10

V13B

10

V21A

9

Blue

V38B

14

V37B

13

V20B

12

Black

V31B

13

V41C

10

V47B

7

Table 8.3 to show top three qurdebi for each faction in terms of number of ties214

Table 8.3 shows the central actors in terms of ties in the blue faction are better
connected than those for other factions and seem to represent the most authoritative
qurdebi within the Kutaisskaya; indeed these actors from this faction are therecognised leaders of the Kutaisskaya in Moscow. They appear to form a highly
connected circle of actors at the centre of the blue faction. This circle includes the
Kutaisi qurdi, Tariel Oniani, V37B. Those around him are very well connected, tend
to operate in Moscow and are drawn from the older and most influential cohort thatwere baptised in the 1980s and had built up reputations before the opportunities thatcame with the collapse of communism. Those who, from other sources (Special AntiCorruption Prosecutor's Office of Spain, 2005), are known to be close to Oniani also
have high centrality scores, such as V20B and V23C, so it is perhaps plausible to see
these actors as a central unit that the Kutaisskaya group as a whole revolves around.
This idea is more plausible in the present day than it was in 2003 when the Kutaisi
police reports were made. Greater competition and the complete move out of Georgia
since the Rose Revolution might have made the Kutaisskaya even more centralised
round Tariel Oniani as numerous news reports suggest (Kommersant 2009; Nasyrov
2009; Galeotti 2009, 2010).
It would be interesting to have network data for the Kutaisskaya in the present
day to test this idea. Without it, we may still suppose that the cliques that formed fromthe original network of thieves-in-law across the Soviet Union have not maintained
actual equality in ties and do indeed have hierarchies and degrees of centralisation. It
is necessary however to note that degrees of centralisation are likely to be unstable
and changing.

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Overall then, the network analysis appears to follow the idea that the qurdebiof Kutaisi form an interacting faction of the larger qurdebi network which further
splits into cliques. The Kutaisskaya itself has some degree of hierarchy but does notcentralise exclusively round only one actor. The factions within the Kutaisskaya arealso rather interconnected and these actors, despite their grievances, do coordinate at
skhodki together.
I have so far given indicators based on primary and secondary sources thatsuggest the factionalisation and centralisation of the thieves’ world in Georgia. The
factors that might explain these aspects have yet to be explicated. In order to make an
initial attempt at this, I next briefly discuss theories of organisational structure andchange.

8.5 Determinants of Organisational Structure and Change

In the previous chapter it was argued that recruitment practices could be
explained by the effects of competition and rising agency and opportunity costs on
punishing wayward practices. The problems of competition and agency costs can be
mediated however by altering organisational structure. It is argued here that thegrowing tendency towards factionalism and centralisation might be seen as a response
to coordination problems in a changing environment that included growing
competition, rising agency costs and shifts in criminal justice policy and the strengthof the state. I first turn to the latter point, suggesting that changes in patterns ofimprisonment might go some way towards explaining factionalism, before turning to216

rising competition and agency costs as further factors for explaining this and thetendency to centralise within factions.

8.5.1 Factionalism and Penal Policy

Some studies (Shelley 1980; Reuter 1985; Varese forthcoming) suggest thatpenal and policing policies can have consequences for the geographic distribution of
criminal groups and this might also plausibly impact on structure and organisation.
Reuter (1985, ch. 7) argues that mafias in America are fundamentally local incharacter, so how then did they ever come into contact in order to coordinate? Reuter
identifies the effect of a federal prison system for putting prisoners from different
regions in touch, as attested to by mafia turncoat Joseph Valachi (Maas 2003). Thissuggestion seems entirely plausible as a factor explaining the initial reach of thethieves-in-law in the Soviet Union. However, the break up of the Soviet federal prison
system into national, localised ones might be hypothesised to have the opposite effecton mafia organisation.
In terms of the effect of penal and policing policies on geographic distribution,
the post-Soviet republics adopted new penal policies after independence. The
Georgian government now stipulates that an offender serve his or her sentence at a
facility in the region where the offence was committed though this does depend on thetype of crime committed (R42). During Soviet times this policy also existed but was
not necessarily used as serious criminals and political prisoners were notoriously sent
to far-flung labour camps.
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In the 1980s, Soviet Georgia had sent its dangerous recidivists far away toSiberia (see chapter 6), in the post-Soviet period however this option was no longer
available. Perhaps then, the location of prisons might have affected interactions
between qurdebi contributing to factions based on locales. The map below shows thelocation of the main prisons in Georgia before 2004. Since then new ones have been
built and others destroyed.

Map 8.2 showing locations of Georgian prisons in 2004.

As can been seen, up to 2004 the prisons focus round population centres.
Tbilisi and Kutaisi all have large, local prisons in the cities’ limits. Both thehinterlands of Tbilisi and Kutaisi contain at least two big prisons and overall the twocities and their regions contain the majority of the prisons in Georgia. This might
again be hypothesised to have consequences in terms of the prominence of Imereti
and Tbilisi in the Georgian thieves’ world. Furthermore, as will be considered below,
the incarceration of local qurdebi in local prisons - Kutaisi, Geguti and Honi in

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Imereti, and Ortachala (Tbilisi, Prison No. 5), Mtskheta and Ksani near Tbilisi - might
have had a further effect in facilitating regional networks and solidifying interregional
differences. I will see below if such an interpretation can be supported at all by thedata.
The Imereti police files (AOCU-K 2004) give information on where cases of
Imereti’s qurdebi were tried and convicted prior to 2004. This information ispresented below in Table 8.2. In total, for all convictions there was data on 154 trials.
The results show that the vast majority of Imereti’s qurdebi stayed close to home incommitting crime as the vast majority of trials were conducted in Kutaisi and theother towns of Imereti. It is quite marked that so few trials (28%, N=154) wereconducted outside the Imereti region. This suggests that the qurdebi contrary to
popular perception were not that mobile, until forced to be.

Place of Trial
Kutaisi Imereti
Court
cases
processed
64
46
N
%

42

30

Supreme Tbilisi Other
Russia Other
Total
Court of
Georgiacountry
Georgia
2
18
11
10
3
154
1

12

7

6

2

100

Table 8.2: shows frequencies for where court cases involving Imeretian qurdebi took place

There was no meaningful correlation between age of a qurdi and the place
where qurdebi were tried. The table shows that the vast majority of qurdebi in thepolice files were tried in Imereti at 72%. This figure increases when we look only atthe early convictions. So, at first conviction the vast majority (86%) of Imeretian
qurdebi were tried in Imereti. This is understandable when we consider that a firstconviction is more likely to be at a young age and this is intuitively more likely to be219

for a crime committed locally rather than in some distant place, as young people are
generally more dependent and less mobile. The figure for trials in Imereti remains
high (70%) for both second and third conviction, however at fourth conviction the
distribution becomes much more equal with 47% tried in Imereti, 24% in Tbilisi andother Georgian towns and 24% in Russia with 5% tried in another country. Looking at
the cases individually the cases tried in Russia appear to represent hardened
recidivists being sent to so-called ‘harsh regime’ camps in the Urals or Siberia; whileother cases show older, previously convicted, qurdebi moving to Russia presumably
to attempt to take up the criminal opportunities on offer there and then being picked
up by the authorities. Unfortunately, attrition in the data means that the number ofcases with information on the 4th conviction amounts to only 17 so it is difficult todraw too much out of this.
The overwhelming number of those tried and convicted in the Kutaisi and
Imereti region generally seems to speak to the preference for these criminals to stay intheir local area and conduct their activities there. It certainly seems to challenge theview that the Georgian qurdebi prefer to be mobile. Instead, the results here appear to
support the hypothesis that the qurdebi stay in one place, until pushed out by externalpressures such as violent competition or clampdowns by the authorities (Varese
forthcoming). That is not to say that a lot of these qurdebi now do not live elsewhere
away from their hometown, but it does suggest that regardless of where an Imeretian
qurdi might finally be active, a criminal career initially commences and continues, atleast for some time, at home.
The mechanism linking locally based criminal careers with changes inorganisational structure, particularly the move to factionalism, may be the solidarityof locally born men through shared time together and mutual attraction and thus belief

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in the otherness of qurdebi from other regions. Immobility on this argument is likely astrong cause of factionalism as local qurdebi network amongst themselves,committing crime in their home town, serving sentences in local prisons, and gaining
reputation in immediate criminal circles. Localities that operated prisons therefore had
a good chance of producing locally born qurdebi, known in and outside of the prison
with reputations transferred freely from the town to the prison and vice versa,
socialised into the thieves’ understandings amongst other local representatives of thethieves’ world. The police files have some examples of this (AOCU-T 2004). Thismeans that authority on the street in a certain locale could be carried over into a local
prison, built on whilst there and then brought back to the street (R42).
Penal policy may have had an effect then in creating local factions within thequrdebi network. However, it is not clear exactly what the size of this effect is on
factionalism or when exactly this effect would have begun as it probably existed prior
to 1991. It is enough to note here however that the criminal careers of many qurdebi,
from Imereti at least, maintained a local character and that this might have added to
the regional factionalism seen in the present day.

8.5.2 Centralised Factions and Competition

As was shown in chapter 7, competition in the environment can haveimportant effects on an organisation. Leeson and Rogers (n.d.), borrowing fromtheories of the organisation of firms, find that competition has a positive correlation
with the degree of hierarchy and centralisation in a criminal firm. These authors findthat ‘contestability crucially shapes organization’ (Leeson & Rogers n.d., p.2) incriminal structures, in other words, the degree of competition a criminal group faces.
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Competition is theorised as an exogenous factor that depends on the entry costs
involved in the industry of, in the case of mafias, protection provision. The morecompetition there is, the greater the incentive for collusion amongst actors in order toblock the market entry of other criminals. Such cartelization is likely when barriers tomarket entry are low as this facilitates competition (Ibid, p. 7).
However, the act of collusion faces coordination obstacles. The threat ofdefection on collusive agreements looms large. Punishment of defection in the extralegal realm may be done through the use of violence, however this is costly to thepunisher: in many cases guilt is difficult to prove and any punishment may be met
with retaliation. The answer to these problems, according to the Leeson & Rogers is
to endow a boss with the relevant authority. ‘When only one cartel member has thepower to use violence to enforce collusion, mistakes are less costly for colluders’(Ibid, p. 8). This explanation invokes the Hobbesian notion of leviathan. Deferral tothe boss is costly, but allows a solution to coordination dilemmas that can create
benefits for all. At higher levels, centralisation and hierarchical structure allow greaterinter-firm collusion across markets and territories. Vesting too much power in a boss
can lead to governance problems such as boss self-dealing, that is, taking advantageof the position and trust bestowed on him or her. However, as long as the cost of thisis outweighed by the benefits of having an executive decision-maker, centralisation
will remain a feature of a criminal organisation.
By the 1990s, the Georgian qurdebi, as has been shown, were operating in aseriously competitive market. On Leeson and Rogers’ view this would create a strong
incentive to form around bosses, bringing together the many small organised crimegroups run by individual qurdebi into one integrated structure within a territoriallybased clique. The theory predicts a top-down organisational structure as long as the222benefits from adopting a hierarchical structure outweigh the costs of boss self-dealing.
With growing pressures of competition both in Georgia and Russia in the 1990s
incentives grew to create an organisational form where bosses were able to makedecisions and act on behalf of the group. This enables the qurdebi to have greater
coordination amongst factions who can collude to block other market entrants, resolve
collective disputes, or challenge existing competitors through the negotiation of theirrespective bosses. This appears to be a very plausible explanatory factor in thefactionalisation and centralisation of the qurdebi then. There definitely was anincrease in competition in the 1990s and there does appear to have been acorresponding increase in centralised factionalism. On this account, the mechanism to
explain this apparent correlation is the incentive for self-preservation for theindividuals involved who need to downsize their organisation from the overarching
network of the thieves-in-law and centralise in more efficient units to survive in amore competitive environment.
Pfeffer and Leblebici (1973) also look at the effects of competition on firms inlegal markets and find in line with Leeson and Rogers (n.d.) that more competitionmeans more centralisation, more hierarchy and more formalisation of decisionmaking. However, these findings need to be more fully tested along with theintervening effects of size and technology, Pfeffer and Leblebici (1973, p. 278) warn.
Leeson and Rogers do not factor in size as a variable in the structure of mafia groups
rejecting it by employing a solitary counter example of a small group that does nothierarchically organise, street gangs. However, there are many studies oforganisational change that test whether growth of an organisation changes structure.
These studies do not reach a consensual conclusion (Barnett & Carroll 1995, p. 221).
Large organisations might have inertial pressures especially if they are also relatively

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old (Hannan & Freeman, 1984) or have no recent history of change (Kelly &Amburgey, 1991), yet a large organisation has greater resources so can implement
and survive change easier (Huber et al. 1993). In principle, the larger the group is themore decentralisation and delegation should occur (Hall 1995) based on the logic oflowering agency costs on monitoring performance. Thus, while competition appears
to be a strong determinant of organisational change, agency and monitoring costs
should also be brought into the analysis in the context of changing size andcomplexity of the qurdebi network.

8.5.3 Network Size, Agency Costs, Factionalism and Centralisation

As we have seen agency costs most likely increased in the 1990s withauthoritative qurdebi moving out of Georgia, probably due to a mixture of the level ofdangerous competition and the greater opportunities elsewhere. Thus, increasing
agency costs appear to be a problem. Furthermore, lowering barriers to entry could
swell the number of recruits and thereby the size of the network making coordinationand monitoring even more costly. Increasing size and agency costs combined withcompetition could provide significant pressures to re-structure.
It is very difficult to estimate the size of the trust network of the thieves-inlaw; to know how many actual made men there are and how many ‘overseers,’‘goodfellas’ and ‘fighters’. However, certain estimates have been made. Figures ofthe last few years have placed the figure around 1,000-1,200 thieves-in-law from thepost-Soviet space. Commentators provide conflicting reports as to the trends in thesefigures. Serio (2008, p. 168-169) states declining figures in the early 1990s, while
Glonti and Lobjanidze (2004) suggest that the number of thieves-in-law increased
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dramatically once the Soviet Union collapsed. Both base their findings on police
evidence.
Glonti and Lobjanidze state that the Russian Interior Ministry recorded a sixfold increase between the years 1991 to 1996 in the number of thieves-in-law in
Russia with 40-50 being ‘crowned’ every year compared to just 6 to 7 prior to 1991
(Ibid, p. 104). The authors do not give actual numbers of thieves-in-law but they also
note, again based on government data, that the number of skhodki in Russia increased
from 26 in the years 1989-1992, to around 100 in 1993, and 413 in 1994 (p. 108).
Varese (2001) shows an increase in the number of thieves-in-law up to 1994 in Russia
after which he projects declining figures based on the assumption that the thieves-inlaw would be slowly picked off by the more violent, untraditional criminals known as‘bandits’. As regards the Georgians, a decline in the numbers of qurdebi appears not
to have happened and this is most likely due to the lowering of barriers to entry inrecruitment and greater ruthlessness and adaptability amongst the Georgian qurdebithemselves.
As was argued in chapter 7, barriers to becoming a qurdi significantly loweredin the 1990s. I have argued in that chapter that a major explanatory factor was anincrease in agency and opportunity costs on those that would otherwise monitor thelevels of qurdebi recruitment. The consequence of this situation was that many new
qurdebi were ‘baptised’ without proper rigour. This would in principle further
increase monitoring costs due to an enlarged membership of the trust network.
Unfortunately, I do not have the adequate historical data to show that there weregreater numbers in the 1990s than at other points in history. The data I have thoughshow that there were more qurdebi baptised in the period 1992-2004 than in otherperiods. Assuming the estimation of baptism age of around 24 (and the age may well225

have been more in flux in the 1992-2004 period), there were 110 qurdebi crowned inthis 1992-2004 period against 88, 57 and 23 for other periods (1982-1991, 1972-1981,
1952-71 respectively). It should not be excluded of course that this is just an attrition
effect in the police files where those baptised in the older cohorts have died off andtherefore do not make it into the files.
However, interview data consistently shows that the impression of expert
respondents is that the number of qurdebi increased in the 1990s. A retired police
investigator said, ‘for some reason their numbers grew in the last few decades
generally, we can say this. I can tell you that the number of qurdebi in Georgia after
WWII you could have counted on your hand’ (R2). Others support this view and link
the increase in numbers to the issue of the age when qurdebi were baptised in the
1990s. ‘In the communist period, qurdebi were never young guys, say around 20 or
less…. but recently, in the 1990s, I remember there were qurdebi in prison who were19, 20, 21 years old, suddenly many turned up’ (R20). Another respondent (R25),
expressed an admiration for the qurdebi she had dealt with in the past but that ‘after
the Soviet Union collapsed younger people started becoming qurdebi and the numberof people grew. Before you would hear of a new qurdi once every couple of years
maybe and now they are scattered around like sunflower seeds! If you steal a chicken
you become a qurdi!’
Here then, the initial agency and opportunity costs incurred through the
movement of the older qurdebi creates an increase in new recruits which then further
amplifies the agency costs involved. Thus, just as individual qurdebi required thedelegation of monitoring organised crime groups and prison gangs through the use ofan ‘overseer,’ so at a group level the qurdebi required monitoring and regulation ofactivities by other qurdebi. Growth in numbers and the traditional wide geographic

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spread of the qurdebi might have increased pressure to factionalise into smaller, moremanageable groups centred on specific actors endowed with greater decision making
capacity than other, formally equal, qurdebi.
The size of a criminal group and its dispersal might well dictate the need for aboss or bosses; the bigger the number of actors, the higher the number of interactions
and the harder it is to monitor these actors. Increasing agency costs require that a
structure be adopted that puts restraints on actors’ behaviour through a range of
mechanisms such as the deployment of norms, punishments and rewards and that
authority be vested in actors who can oversee and implement this structure. As wasshown earlier (see also chapter 5), individual Georgian qurdebi, often dispersed inmany countries, decentralised the structure of their groups by employing others tolook after their interests known as ‘overseers’ and ‘authorities’.
Yet, the fact that the qurdebi network appears to have grown in size is notenough to explain factionalisation and centralisation on its own. Analyses ofbusinesses note that a further stimulus to reorganise and restructure is needed. A
bloated organisation can still manage as long as it is under no pressure. However,once competition emerges the pressure on management to streamline and restructure
increases (Pfeffer & Leblecici 1973). Even the interaction of these two factors is notenough to guarantee that an organisation will change as this depends on many otherconfounding factors (Hannan & Freeman, 1984). There are many obstacles toorganisational change. These include internal political wrangling, imperfect
information, and sunk investments in the status quo (Haveman, 1992). Thus,
opportunities and threats are not always recognised or acted upon. It is difficult thento be certain whether structural change occurs as a rational strategy, a response to227threats or opportunities, or haphazardly. Furthermore, there are some features that areoutside the scope of this analysis, such as technological changes.
Yet clearly certain pressures shaped the qurdebi structurally towards
centralised factions. Growing size, itself driven to some degree by the presence of
lethal competition, meant that the thieves-in-law either adapted their structure or
faced the decline that Varese (2001) predicted in Russia. Whilst more data is needed,
these considerations provide the beginnings of an explanation for the move towards
factionalism and centralisation.

8.6 Conclusion

I have presented various indicators that suggest changes in terms of internal
relations and structural factors, most clearly in terms of factionalism andcentralisation within those factions. I found that the qurdebi in Georgia have become
factionalised and centred on certain charismatic characters. The Tbilisskaya,
Kutaisskaya and Sukhumskaya groups, to the extent that they have established adegree of autonomy from each other and sometimes conflict, have begun to look more
like authoritative organisations made up of groups of qurdebi and their associates but
deferring to clear bosses. These groups may be thought of as cartels of smallorganised crime groups based on geographic distinctions, with the cartels
subsequently becoming relatively centralised, sometimes competing sometimes
cooperating, with cartels from other regions. I have argued that factionalism andcentralisation might be seen as responses to pressures such as increasing competition,size, and agency costs in the 1990s.

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The break up of the network of the qurdebi into localised factions most likely
constitutes a survival strategy in the present day. The threat from paramilitary groups
such as Mkhedrioni in Georgia and new post-1991 groups that simply structured
themselves as hierarchical mafias ruled by ‘authorities’ and made up of organisational
units of ‘bandits’ and ‘fighters’ in Russia for example (Volkov 2002; Humphreys
2002), was met by the Georgian qurdebi by adapting towards an authoritative
organisational structure themselves.
This trend brings into question whether what we observe in the present day is
indeed a ‘criminal system’ that pervades Russia, Georgia and the former Soviet states.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, the thieves-in-law are bound by
problems of governance, coordination and regulation and have to struggle with theseissues if they are to maintain the wide reaching, all-pervasive criminal world thatsome have claimed for them. These problems of governance have made it more
realistic in the present day to talk about Georgian mafias organisationally more akinto territorially based Italian mafias such as the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian
N’drangheta.
As Tilly warns of other trust networks that centralise, this might haveconsequences in the long term in terms of the survival of the once uniform thieves’world. The incentives to participate in a trust network also change, moving away fromcommitment towards the pursuit of capital or the avoidance of punishment, that is,
coercion. I now turn to the issue of commitment, the glue that holds the qurdebi
network

together.

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9. ‘With My Body and Soul’: Commitment and Exit
Costs in the Thieves’ World“To the question about his identity, he answered that he is V.…and he is a kanonieri
qurdi with his ‘body and soul.’”35

Witness Statement on the arrest of the qurdi V.
(Prosecution Service Indictment, 2006b)

Gulag survivor Varlam Shalamov writes (1994 p.411) that ‘hundreds ofthousands of people who have been in the camps are permanently seduced by theideology of these criminals [the thieves] and have ceased to be people. Somethingcriminal has entered into their souls forever. Thieves and their morality have left anindelible mark on each.’ This is an evocative portrayal of the thieves-in-law as thestrongest representatives of a counter-culture that had a seductive appeal to thehundreds of thousands of Gulag inmates and former prisoners. However, from anotherpoint of view it is difficult to understand the attraction and commitment to thethieves’ life: the collective demands made on members, the ascetic lifestyle, and theperception of the prison as home. Yet the thieves-in-law of the Soviet Union and thecriminal institution of the thieves’ world has managed to attract and keep committed
35This is a variation of the common refrain upon arrest for a qurdi. In Georgian: ‘khortsit da siskhlit
me qurdi var.’ Literally, ‘with my flesh and blood I am a thief-in-law.’230

members over the decades. It is undoubtedly one of the most important factors in
explaining the resilience of the thieves-in-law. This chapter looks at the sources ofsuch commitment and changes to that commitment in the present day.
For Tilly (2006), authoritative organisations, collaborative institutions andtrust networks deploy mixtures of commitment, capital and coercion as incentives inorder to govern and coordinate themselves. Trust networks stand out in relying oncommitment to a greater degree than authoritative organisations or collaborative
institutions. The earlier typologies of organisations also stress the differing incentives
upon which different types of organisations are based (Kelman 1958; Etzioni 1961;
Ouchi 1979). For Etzioni (1961) there are coercive, utilitarian and normative
organisations and then fuzzy sets of these. For Ouchi (1979), organisational control
mechanisms come in the form of bureaucracies, markets and clans. Tilly’s ‘trust
network’, Etzioni’s ‘normative organisation’ or Ouchi’s ‘clan’ rely not just on
utilitarian mechanisms of securing commitment but also on the legitimacy of theclaims made and symbols produced by a given organisation, identification of roles
played, and internalisation of beliefs.
This chapter argues that the original society of thieves-in-law represented acommitment based trust network. The original rules that were instituted at the
inception of the thieves’ society comprised commitment-inducing mechanisms forgoverning behaviour and maintaining consistent lines of action. This was vital for thethieves-in-law to reproduce themselves. The prison-based essence of the group meantthat it was impossible to attract new recruits by the promise of material gains andmaintaining recruits through the threat of punishment would also have been too costly
a process. Thus, recruits had to be socialised and committed to the thieves’ idea as thefirst rule of being a thief-in-law. Furthermore, as in an ideal-type trust network (Tilly

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2006), it was necessary to maintain high barriers to exit, with punishment for
defectors and the removal of all privileges.
Below, I will discuss three of the main rules in the thieves’ code: payment into
the obshchak, the cutting of all social ties outside the thieves’ world, and submission
to the ‘thieves’ idea.’ I will discuss these as binding devices that raise barriers to exit,
however, these three areas also have affective and normative elements in inducing
commitment. I draw on primary and secondary data to show the following: theobshchak is still a prominent phenomenon in Georgia and represents an open-ended
investment for a qurdi; burning bridges with social ties and enacting communion withthe thievish community is declining in Georgia witnessed by the rate of marriage andincrease of degrees of wealth amongst the qurdebi; the sense of surrender to a higher
ideal and re-identification with the thieves’ community, itself part of a ‘burning
bridges’ strategy, is perhaps on the decline in Georgia as indicated by rates ofnicknaming amongst cohorts.

9.1 The Concept of Commitment

The concept of commitment is a focus in a number of disciplines and is ofinterest to sociologists of organisations and religion as well as to criminologists andgame theorists. In the 1960s and 1970s especially, the concept gained a great deal ofinterest amongst those sociologists of industry and work who tried to understand thevarying degrees of commitment a worker might have to his or her firm. The central
theme was to try to explain the onset of ‘consistent lines of activity’ (Becker 1960),
their antecedents and consequences. An important element to this lies in explaining
the psychological attachment a person could develop towards an organisation
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(O’Reilly & Chatman 1986, p. 493). The independent foundations of this attachment
have been theorised as three-fold: compliance based on rewards (cognitivecommitment); identification with organisational roles and desire for affiliation(affective commitment); and internalization of values and congruence between the
beliefs and attitudes of the individual and those of the organisation (normative
commitment) (Kelman 1958; Etzioni 1961; Kanter 1968; Buchanan 1974; Ouchi
1979; O’Reilly & Chatman 1986; Meyer & Allen 1991).
One of the best of these studies is Kanter’s (1968, p. 499) work on
commitment in utopian communities. She noted that not only is a supply of people
necessary for the continuation of a utopian community but these people must also be
committed: ‘since social orders are supported by people, one problem of collectivities
is to meet organisational requisites in such a way that participants at the same time
become positively involved with the system.’ She identified three components ofcommitment. These components are cognitive, affective and normative commitment.
Gathering data on around 30 utopian communities, she identified the presence orabsence of these commitment components, their manifestations and the effect these
had on ‘success’ of a community, measured as survival for longer than a generation,or 25 years.
Though theoretical discussions of commitment mechanisms make these neatcategorisations of cognitive, affective and normative commitment, discussed above(Kelman, 1958; Meyer & Allen 1991; Kanter 1968, 1972), it is clear that thesecategories overlap. The affective and normative dimensions interact with utilitarianfunctions of commitment. For Becker, following Schelling (1960), commitment
emerges out of placing ‘side bets’ which tie the agent in to following a consistent lineof action. There are three elements to Becker’s notion of commitment: firstly, the233prior action of the person betting on his future consistent activity, secondly, arecognition of this side bet by other interested parties, thirdly, the resulting consistentline of activity (Becker 1960, p. 36). Becker stresses that not all such side bets are
made consciously or deliberately but may simply include such actions as specialisingin certain skills resulting in burning bridges with other possible career paths thereby
tying in the agent to one area of work.
Concerning the kanonieri qurdebi in Georgia, as stated by Tevzadze (n.d.),this specific grouping at the outset contained many elements of a religiousorganisation or a monastic sect. Just as in the Italian mafias, the adherence to a strict
moral code helps to keep self-interest in check against the interests of what Paoli(2003, p. 81) calls the ‘normative communitas’ of mafia members. Members sign up
to a status contract which does not give immediate short-term pay offs for specificobligations. Instead, the claims made by the community rely on ‘generalized
reciprocity’ where this means exchange that requires no payoff for the individual in
the short term but benefits the whole. Such status contracts will usually only be
accepted by committed individuals who have internalised the mafia code and identify
with the morals and goals of the group (Sacco 1997).
However, emphasising processes of internalisation and identification does not
exclude Becker’s notion of rational ‘side bets’ from being brought into the analysis ofmafias. Becker is, in effect, describing a binding game that raises costs on exiting a
network. Simply punishing exit is not an efficient strategy as it involves highmonitoring and production costs. Thus, the essence of the binding game is to bringabout commitment by altering pay offs on future choices, building in costs on
defection or exit.

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On this view, ‘generalized reciprocity’ can be seen as a strategy in a binding
game. By taking on a status contract, in which individual interests are subordinated to
the good of the group for an indeterminate period, continuing commitment to theoriginal oaths is made credible. While it is difficult to measure or even estimate thedegree of internalisation of norms, communal feeling, or changes in sense of self, thestructure of costs and benefits on exit are easier to discern and analyse on theassumption that actors are rational.
Taking on a status contract and taking on the costs involved in generalised
reciprocity bears resemblance to the establishment of trust in a signalling game. For
example, paying individual resources into a common fund can be seen as signallingcommitment. According to Bliege-Bird & Alden Smith (2005, p. 231), pooling
resources ‘prompts the hypothesis that by paying these costs individuals signal toothers that they are indeed committed to long-term collective action. Signal costs
helps secure this commitment if a defector would find it not worthwhile to pay it
whereas a committed individual will recoup it through group membership over thelong run.’ Whether a given instance works as signalling or binding in a game ofimperfect information depends on the sequence of events (Gambetta 2009a p. 74). In
signalling, a signal is produced before the fact in order to establish the possession ofsome valuable attribute. In binding, commitment is secured after the fact in order toensure consistent, continuing lines of activity in future. Thus, in the case of mafias
signalling occurs primarily in the recruitment stage, and binding only once recruited.
In what follows, I will analyse three aspects of the thieves’ world that can beseen as binding devices inducing consistent lines of action amongst members, raising
the costs of defection and barriers to exit. These elements are: the obshchak, burning
bridges through rejection of social ties outside the criminal community, and a change235

in identity and surrender of the individual to the collective. These mechanisms in thethieves’ world tie in an actor to a consistent line of action by raising barriers to exit.
As was argued with barriers to entry, it is costly to continually monitor the boundariesof the trust network, therefore instituting alternative arrangements to mitigate thesecosts is a rational strategy. Such arrangements might involve internalisation of norms
in status contracts, or altering cost-benefit analyses of members through investment –whether fiscal, temporal or emotional - in the membership. Such strategies that
increase the costs of defection are taken here as instances of binding rather thansignals. This is because, firstly, it is not always clear that they meet the costdiscriminating condition required of signals (see chapter 7). Secondly, these acts are
not committed solely at a time prior to recruitment but constitute ongoing demands
placed upon individuals throughout their time as qurdebi.
Finally, it is not suggested here that elements of the thieves’ law weredeliberately constructed so as to induce commitment, this cannot be known, however,many of the elements of the thieves’ law, in its original and purest conception,
coincides with features of other clandestine trust networks that bring aboutcommitment. In a final section of this chapter, I will, based on other studies, list thosefeatures and the degree to which they still exist and what this might mean for the
resilience of the qurdebi.

9.2 Commitment and Change in the Georgian Thieves’ World

It is worth setting out again the basic tenets of the thieves’ code as thiscontains the original commandments which in effect induce commitment in membersof the thieves’ world. There are a number of publications that lay out the statutes of236

the thieves’ law (Gurov 1995; Podlesskikh & Tereshonok 1995; Serio & Razinkin
1994; Varese 2001; Oleinik 2003; Glonti & Lobjanidze 2004). The thieves’ law
should not be confused with a more general informal prison rules that also existed,
related to the behaviour of all prisoners not just those ‘in the understandings,’ though
this coincided on many points with the thieves’ code. The thieves’ law set out thefollowing basic principles:-

1. A thief-in-law must never work or have ever worked in or outsideprison-

2. A thief-in-law must not take a wife, start a family or maintain familyties-

3. A thief-in-law must not collude with the state in any form-

4. A thief-in-law must contribute to the criminal common fund (known as
the obshchak)-

5. A thief-in-law must be honest with other thieves-

6. A thief-in-law must be dedicated to the thieves’ idea-

7. A thief-in-law must attract new recruits, especially from among theyouth
8. A thief-in-law must control his prison and impose thievish jurisdiction

there (known as ‘turning it black’)

From these principles, many further informal rules flow such as: avoid allpolitical parties or unions, have no registered place of residence, and do not carry
firearms (Glonti & Lobjanidze 2004, pp. 94-98) Attendant punishments accompanied
the informal law of the thieves including beatings and death. These rules should be237

kept in mind in the subsequent discussion, as they will be evident throughout. Belowhowever, I concentrate mainly on rules 4), 2) and 6), in that order, though otherstatutes will be brought into the analysis indirectly.

9.2.1 Side Bets: The Obshchak

In terms of cognitive binding devices, Kanter (1968) writes that ‘throughinvestment individuals become integrated with the system…they have, in effect,
purchased a share in the proceeds of the organisation and now have a stake in its
continued good operation’ (Kanter 1968 p. 506). Investments in utopian communities
are often irreversible with no refunds and no records kept. The society of the
kanonieri qurdebi may also be seen as employing a commitment strategy throughfiscal investment which is laid down in the thieves’ commandment to always
contribute earnings to the collective fund: the obshchak.
The obshchak was kept originally with the idea of mutual aid (Gurov 1995;
Varese 2001). Funds are raised through the extortion of prisoners and entities outsideprison and funds are also voluntarily paid in by the qurdebi as a cut from winnings in
cards or profits from racketeering. It is a duty of all qurdebi to pay into the obshchak
and a particularly reliable and trusted member of the thieves’ community looks after
the fund. The obshchak then acts as a form of social insurance, and it may be drawn
upon only with the consent of others and, originally at least, to aid those most in need
(Varese 2001, p. 155; Glonti & Lobjanidze 2004).
Those wanting to become qurdebi and the qurdebi themselves are required toinvest in the communal fund and this investment may be seen as an important side bet
in bringing about commitment. The obshchak in Georgia is still a strong criminal238

institution. The recent crackdown since 2005 on the qurdebi in Georgia has turned up
examples of the obshchak being collected. On the 20th December 2006, after anoperation by the special forces in Tbilisi, 19 people were arrested and their obshchak
discovered by the authorities; it contained 100,000 lari (roughly $50,000). Along withthe money was an encoded list with names, dates and amounts given. ‘The money
was collected by criminal authorities and by those people who by their own wish gavemoney to support the criminal world and transferred it to this criminal account’(Prime Crime 2006).36
Of course, a lot of this money would have been extracted from people throughthreats and coercion however it is clear that people did voluntarily pay money into the
obshchak. One author (Rodkin 2006) claims that in Georgia during Soviet times the
obshchak could receive small voluntary contributions such as 50 kopecks. The
following story about a kai bichi who eventually became a qurdi, J., in the small townof Zugdidi in western Georgia is a good example:‘I can tell you how he [J.] started getting involved with the qurdebi. It was when he
was young, a teenager, he gave 2,000 rubles – this was the Soviet times, mind you – tomy neighbour who was a criminal and had some authority. At that time my neighbour
was in jail, so J. went round to his wife and gave her the money as help for her
husband. From then on his name started to be banded about as a kai bichi andsomeone who follows the gageba. It was always like that, a young guy steals a TV, orwhatever, sells it for $100, goes to guys with connections to qurdebi, like the
makarubeli [‘the overseer’ - a qurdi’s right-hand man], and gives them half and says
‘here you are guys, have this money for a supra [a Georgian feast] on me,’ and if hedoes it a couple of times he will be mentioned to the qurdi in that region….And J. waslike that, he did a lot of robbing and mugging when he was young and gave money tothe criminal authorities.’ (R22)36

www.primecrime.ru 20.12.06, ‘Obshchak naden, bilo 100,000 Lari’

239

This example shows that giving money to the obshchak can operate as both asignal of commitment as well as a commitment inducing investment (Bliege Bird &Alden Smith 2005). In this case, as J. was not yet initiated it is more likely to act as asignal. The money that was funnelled up to the made men however should still be
split amongst other qurdebi with a cut going to the local obshchak.
Payments to the obshchak were made in the prison too. In this case it might
not be the proceeds of crime but money sent from relatives and winnings from card
games. The prison service claims that every month the money put in the obshchak
through extortion or voluntary contributions from prisoners reached up to 300,000 lari($150,000), with minimum payments into the obshchak of 50 lari ($25) and amaximum of 10,000 lari ($5,000) (Prime Crime 2008c). A lot of the money might be‘won’ from prisoners through forced gambling (Prison Service 2006), as the ability toplay and win at cards was considered an important quality and was in the original
thieves’ law. The Prison Service reform report (2006) states: ‘for decades, as a formof racketeering, under vory-v-zakone [kanonieri qurdebi] supervision all inmates wereforced to pay sums ranging from 30 to several thousand lari into the so-calledobshchak. Vory-v-zakone maintained a systematised list of the contributors and those
who refused to pay were physically forced.’ The extortion of prisoners is corroborated
by the story in March 2007 of Gia Eliauri, godson of a high-ranking official in the
defence ministry who shot dead a 15-year old boy in an argument. In pre-trial
detention he claimed that, ‘thieves were calling me and demanded I pay them
$20,000’ (HRIDC 2007).
The funds kept in the obshchak can only be used with the consent of other
qurdebi and is kept in a safe place guarded by the most trusted people chosencollectively. Abuse of the obshchak is one of the greatest sins in the thieves’ world.

240

Glonti & Lobjanidze (2004, pp. 118-119) cite a document found by the police inGeorgia that contains rules concerning the use of the obshchak. The pious language
used in it is revealing: ‘The obshchak is a sacred place. It may only be governed bysaintly people…These people must be absolutely honest to the thieves’ idea,
dedicated in their heart and soul….Every keeper [of the obshchak] must have fromfive to fifteen people in his care.’ The obshchak then must be respected by all those
who keep and use it.
The fact that the qurdebi and their closest associates pool their ill gotten gains
instead of using it solely for themselves is indicative of an ongoing long-term
investment in the qurdebi network and a form of social insurance that can be called
upon in future. It can be seen as a form of generalised reciprocity. In this way, thecost of exclusion from the network is raised, as dropping out would represent a longterm investment with no return.

9.2.2 Burning Bridges: Social Ties and Lifestyle

The original scholar of the sociology of organisations, Chester Barnard, wrotethat ‘the most tangible and subtle of incentives is that which I have called thecondition of communion…it is the feeling of…solidarity, [and] social integration’(Barnard quoted in Scott 1995, p. 39). The multiple arrangements created to
implement strategies of renunciation of other social ties and communion with a newcommunity (Kanter 1968) may broadly be seen as sub-categories of the creation andmaintenance of symbolic and social boundaries (Lamont & Molnar 2002; Tilly 2005).
This includes the uprooting of social ties outside the community, relinquishing otherattachments that might compete such as family and friends, a special language and241attitudes towards an ‘outside,’ and the nurturing of a group consciousness and identityand ‘we-feeling.’ Kanter (1968, p. 510) suggests this we-feeling or communion iscreated through such mechanisms as equality of membership, communal sharing andliving spaces, frequent meetings, rituals and ceremonies, songs, and celebrations.
From the point of view of binding devices, this acts as a strategy of burning bridges:
sacrificing other social ties, rejecting alternative social roles and choosing an
irreversible path in life raises costs on exiting the network.
Aspects of such ‘cohesion-commitment’ (Kanter 1968) are present in thethieves’ world. Renunciation of family is, according to Gurov (1995, chapter 3), thefirst rule of the thieves’ code. Chalidze (1977, p. 48) also claims that ‘the specificpurpose of the “thieves’ law” is to define the exact limits of the isolation [fromsociety].’ In Italy the Mafia is often referred to as ‘mother’ (Paoli 2003, p.78), and soin the thieves’ world the figure of the mother is replaced by the thieves’ community.
It is reported that thieves-in-law historically displayed the tattoo ‘ne zabudu mat’rodnuyu’ (Russian for ‘I will not forget my mother’) where ‘mother’ most likely
referred to the thieves’ fraternity itself (Tarabin 2003; Varese 2001; Monakhov 1957
in Gurov 1995). Oleinik (2003, p. 72) also refers to the renunciation of social rootsquoting a former inmate as saying: ‘the thief had nothing…he was even forbidden to
marry since otherwise he would think more of his family than the inmates.’ Varese(2001, p. 152) writes: ‘professional criminals who remained attached to their families
were scornfully referred to as domashniki [home-dwellers] and on that basis could be
refused entry into the brotherhood.’
The level of self-deprivation and self-control were high. For example, ‘one oldblatnoi [someone in the ‘understandings’] was deprived of his rights as a vor [thief-inlaw] only because he accepted a pack of tea from a camp guard,’ (Santerre, in Varese242

2001, p. 154). This put the thieves-in-law in the same position as other radical
religious groupings such as the Krestiki, who also refused to work under the Soviet
regime (Ibid, fn 37, p. 241).
As well as renouncing the family, a thief-in-law was not supposed to marry, orat least to have no real attachment to a woman, though he may have sexual relations
with women and often these women might be shared or seen as communal property(Shalamov 1994; Varese 2001). Thus, the thieves’ rules concerning women as
partners exist at the juncture of renunciation of normal sexual and affective ties withthe opposite sex and communion through the sharing of women with others in thegroup.
Communion was also formed in a variety of other ways. Firstly, the use of a
special jargon known as fen’ya and specific terms for an inside and outside create
symbolic boundaries for the actors. ‘The name [thief-in-law] symbolised a criminal’s
belonging to a group of recidivists, other categories of criminal related to an area
situated outside the boundaries of the “law” of this group’ (Gurov 1995, p. 104). The‘vorovskoi mir’ (thieves’ world) of the blatnye (thieves-in-law, or high statuscriminals within the thieves’ world) was juxtaposed with the ordinary society and theworld of the fraery (ordinary people, derived from the German for ‘freeman’) or lokhy(mugs, i.e. someone who toils for the benefit of others). This linguistic element
included songs known only to those who had served time in the Gulag (Dobson2009).
Secondly, there existed the idea that the thieves’ law or ‘understandings’ werea different philosophy of law and society that you either lived by or you did not. This
quickly established an idea of two competing worlds: that of the lower depths(Galeotti 2008) and those of the upper world. The idea of being either in the243understandings or not was often reported by respondents. In Georgia, you might beasked simply “gagebashi khar?” - do you follow the understandings? ‘In the 1990s, it
was possible to be asked on the street, “what suit do you belong to? Qurdi? Kai bichi?
Ment [police]? Fraer?”’ (R12). The suit refers to cards, black and grey suits were
those in the understandings, red and blue, those that were not (Glonti & Lobjanidze
2004, p. 163). The Georgian qurdebi took the suits distinction further, distinguishedthemselves from other thieves-in-law by taking on the suit of spades, pikovaya mast’,as their own.
Thirdly, the use of elaborate tattoos and pictorial language to provide
information on criminal status and type enhanced boundaries as tattoos often
subverted official communist symbols and displayed a pride and knowledge of penal
subculture (Dobson 2009). Fourthly, the physical environment in which the thieves
lived made for limited privacy, communal spaces and close contact. Fifthly, the ritual
practices of ‘crowning’ or ‘baptism’ and ‘uncrowning’ carried out at group meetings
known as skhodki may all be seen as constitutive of communion in the thieves’ world.
Against the original code that promoted the cutting of all familial ties andrestrictions on investment in marriage, the Georgian qurdebi in recent times began totake wives and maintain links with their families. The proportion of Georgian thievesin-law with wives as of 2004 was 93% (N=141). Qurdebi however pay lip service tothe original code and will not refer to their wives as ‘wives’ according to one
respondent who as a lawyer has defended the qurdebi in court (R19). It is not clear
how exceptional Georgian qurdebi are in terms of not giving up family and socialroots though Oleinik (2003) states that the was Georgian exceptionalism on this issue
and that from the 1960s onwards it was one of the main reasons for the split between
the Georgian and the Russian thieves-in-law in the 1980s. The relinquishment of244

familial and social ties then as a commitment mechanism became seriously
compromised sometime in the later Soviet period.
Similarly, and related to the element of sacrifice, renouncing material goods
and wealth accumulation also became seriously compromised as the Soviet Union
became an increasingly unequal society37 before the stark inequalities of the postSoviet period hit. As Paoli (2003, 2008) notes with reference to the Italian mafia,
where the values of the surrounding society in which the mafia is implanted are
geared towards wealth generation and the ‘trivial pursuit of money’ the danger can bethat the mafia will also embrace these attitudes. Doing so, according to Paoli, createsa tension between generalised and specific exchange in which payoffs are demanded
immediately for services rendered. The code of honour in the case of Italy then has
been most affected by the modernisation process. The question becomes the extent towhich the code and membership of the mafia are valued instrumentally as a means toanother end such as wealth creation and social climbing or as ends in themselves(Paoli 2003, pp. 94-95).
In the case of Georgia, the process of throwing off dedication to communist
ideals and pursuing capitalistic ventures gradually sped up through the 1970s and1980s up to the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The (re)orientation ofsociety away from communist ideals to the individualistic pursuit of profit was
mirrored in the Soviet underworld. The old code of honour concerning the rejection ofmaterial wealth and families was under threat of being overturned in favour of living
rather more mainstream lives, yet if the thieves no longer lived by the letter of theirown law then there were still those who wanted to remain true to the spirit of it.

37

Using just official statistics inequality was actually declining in the 1980s and the Soviet Union was
still not as unequal as other western countries (Alexeev & Gaddy 1991). However, these statistics do
not take into account the wealth generated by second economic activities and the resulting inequalities
by those who had access to bureaucratic resources.

245

Arrogant displays of wealth amongst many qurdebi were still not consideredcorrect and were often a source of conflict or seen as deserving of punishment. For
example, one Kutaisi qurdi, G., built a luxurious new house in the centre of town. For
such a display of wealth he got into a conflict with an old qurdi by the nickname B.
who was born in 1949 and considered himself a pure thief. According to the police
records of this conflict G. was unimpressed with B.’s claims against him suggestingthat B. should not be surprised at wealth or big houses. However, G. himself had
made claims against another young Kutaisi qurdi for living an extravagant and ‘unthievish’ lifestyle (AOCU-K 2004).
One former prison governor commented on the difference between the older
and younger generations of qurdebi by recalling an experience in his early careerwhen a qurdi returned back to prison in Georgia having been away in Siberia:‘I remember…there was one qurdi Khatishvili, Zura, strong, good guy, from Tbilisi,
from Mtatsminda, the old region. They sent him off to Magadan, you know, far away,
at that time 1970s, 1980s, it was silence, you couldn’t find out about anything….andthen suddenly everyone was talking about this Zura coming back, this kanonieri
qurdi, that he was arriving, coming from Rostov in Russia. He’d been away for 5 or 6
years. Well even to this day I have no idea how everyone got this information soquickly, how they knew. When he arrived back everyone was waiting…he jumped outof the vehicle and he was wearing a Chokha [traditional Georgian cloak]…And hekissed the ground and he said “Thank God that I’ve come back to my land”, like that,and went and took his things…And it gave you the feeling that this guy was a very
dignified person, feelings of sympathy arose. And other prisoners had collected
money for…a present, it couldn’t have been any other way, I mean, a qurdi arrived!
And he got some money as well, and he was saying, why so much money? At that time
it was about 50 rubles, and he took some of it and gave the rest back, whereas now,
they expect everything, cars, houses, bathhouses…”’ (R21)

Achieving communion and burning bridges with other social ties has become
consistently more difficult as the qurdebi have transformed from a prison fraternity toa mafia. Naturally, a group that was once prison based and then moves to the outside

246

will struggle to maintain the same level of communal activity. Aspects such as
spending long parts of the day together, sharing finances and materials, creating andperforming songs, marking celebrations and monitoring the amount and type ofcontact made with those outside the group become very difficult. The institution of
the skhodka however is still maintained by the thieves-in-law except that where thesewere once held within penal institutions they are now held in restaurants, hotels,
resorts and private homes.
However, other arrangements that induce commitment through theconstruction and reinforcement of symbolic and social boundaries that maintain areified ‘outside’ have been maintained. These include the use of language, the agreed
upon symbols of tattoos, and negative definitions of those outside the community.
These aspects are not so dependent on the physical proximity of the prison setting andare still present within the Georgian thieves’ world. The Georgians use slang both inGeorgian and borrowings from Russian. The use of this jargon is one element thatmight now be used against a person under the new Georgian anti-mafia laws
concerning being a ‘member of the thieves’ world’ (R13). The ‘outside’ is seen
negatively as a place for losers or mugs, governed by the unjust law of the state.
Tattoos are still widely used, including the eight-point star on both shoulders, as isevidenced by many photos of the Georgian qurdebi (AOCU-T 2004).

9.2.3 Normative Commitment: Nicknaming and Self-Identification

Normative commitment for Kanter (1968, p. 511) can be broken down into
two processes: mortification and surrender. The former refers to the relinquishing of
an individual’s sense of autonomy, a good example of which are the hazing practices
247

used by military institutions for new recruits. The latter involves giving over decisionmaking power to a higher authority. Weberian charismatic leadership may lead tosuch a deferral, but the charisma may also be of a collective ideology and identity,
what Kanter (1968, p. 514) calls ‘institutionalised awe’ which: ‘consists of ideologicalsystems and structural arrangements which order and give meaning to the individual’slife…these not only satisfy the individual’s “need for meaning” but also provide asense of rightness, certainty and conviction.’ Such structural arrangements include
shrouding an organisation in mystery, instituting hierarchies, separating out theleaders from members and making decisions based on seeming mysticism and magic(Ibid.).
Whilst creating a new identity submitted to a higher ideology is a strong
element in commitment, it should not be discounted that such self-surrender also
maintains a rational element in ensuring commitment. On this view, it can be seen as
a further constitutive part of the burning of bridges with other social actors andnormative orders. Combined with other elements already discussed these processes
create a further disincentive to exit the trust network.
Thieves-in-law belong to a wider social institution (Chalidze 1977), thethieves’ world, that provides an evolving set of rules and norms that in its purest form
constitute an anti-statist ideology that may be to varying degrees internalized. The
thieves’ law given previously clearly states that submission to the thieves’ ideology is
one of the rules a made man must follow. Understanding the thieves’ world as a‘social institution’ points to the fact that the thieves-in-law do not just make up anorganised criminal group or organisation but are actors in a wider arrangement thattakes in not just rules but norms, beliefs, values, roles to play and templates for action(Hall & Taylor 1996; Scott 2000; Peters 2005). Mythologizing and romanticising the248thieves’ world and the thieves-in-law themselves perpetuates a belief that this penal
subculture does in fact represent an alternative moral order to that of the state,something that an individual may mortify and surrender him or herself to.
The thieves’ idea, however romanticised, had such a hold over people
according to Gurov (1995). The former thief-in-law Ch. is cited as writing that mostthieves would rather give up on life than move away from the thieves’ idea (in Gurov,
chapter 3). The thieves’ idea was actively propagated amongst young people and thiswas a very real problem for the Soviet regime. Sanctions against those initiatedmembers who had broken the thieves’ code included public humiliation and thereporting of sanctions through the dispersal of malyava, a type of thieves’ newslettercontaining information and directives. The thieves’ code was held up as the moral
standard. According to Podlesskikh and Tereshonok (1995, p. 236), the fifth statute of
the thieves’ law states that: ‘denying the thieves’ law is equivalent to treason and thepunishment can only be death.’ There were then strong rational incentives tosurrender oneself to the thieves’ idea. Yet this did not take away from the
mythological elements of it which is summed up by Roeder’s (1958, p. 91) awestruckaccount of the blatnye based on the author’s own time served in the Gulag:‘everywhere and incessantly the system praises the hero of socialist labour, thepioneer, the robot-like worker, the machine man amidst his machines; but in theirhearts the people love the blatnoi, the strong, free man.’This mythologizing of the leaders of the thieves’ world, the instituting of
hierarchies separating the blatnye from others and the almost mystical power andjustice of the thieves’ idea to be obeyed at all costs, correspond to strategies thatgrounds the possibility for mortification and surrender of the self to this criminal
community. This former aspect of mortification is defined here as the giving over of249

an old, personal identity to a new, group one. In achieving this thieves-in-law
historically adopted nicknames upon being ‘baptised’ or ‘crowned’. Here I will
present data from Georgia on the prevalence of nicknames that examines this practiceand identifies changes within it.
According to Varese (2001, Appendix A), a nickname would be bestowed
during the thieves’ initiation ritual. The choice of name was left to the initiated andwas sometimes based on pre-existing nicknames already acquired in other social
milieus. This feature of the thieves’ initiation ritual suggests that for thieves-in-law
there seems to be some sort of instrumental logic to nicknames as opposed to them
just being purely expressive elements of masculine jocularity. Certainly the police inGeorgia place some importance on nicknames, listing them in the files in all cases foreach qurdi.
One important function of nicknames might be to create social cohesivenessthrough the adoption of a new name thereby going through a process of ‘rebirth’
where the new recruit submits himself to the laws of the group he has just joined,
what Kanter (1968) calls mortification. This occurs in some religious fraternities andsecret societies. In this sense nicknames would be important in the construction of acollective identity and sense of belonging. Varese (2001) suggests this to be the casewith the Russian vory-v-zakone. The new vor creates himself anew as a follower of
the ascetic life of the fraternity.
Alternatively, Gambetta (2009a pp. 230-250) identifies various roles fornicknames including reducing interpersonal tensions and increasing trust in collective
enterprises. Gambetta also discusses the role of nicknames in facilitating
identification of people, especially in a society, such as Sicily, where names are often
the same. Like codenames in this case, nicknames can help criminals recognise each250

other. They might also be used for secrecy and for confusing the issue ofidentification. The problem of course, as the Georgian police files show, is that anickname might also help the police distinguish people. In the case of the qurdebi
nicknames most likely aid rather than hinder identification and, if they have any
instrumentality, are used for such identification amongst the qurdebi themselves.
This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, once initiated, qurdebi do not often
commit crime directly thus it is difficult to suppose why a nickname would makethem any more susceptible to arrest. Secondly, it is in the qurdebi’s code that if you
are a qurdi you may not deny you are a qurdi; a real qurdi wears his criminal status
proudly.38 Again, this suggests the qurdi does not want to hide but clarify his identity.
Thirdly, the qurdebi are highly mobile, thus, the idea that the nickname helps tospread the fact of joining the qurdebi is likely. Nicknames can, as any goodtrademark, fulfil the condition of being memorable and, when displayed inconjunction with other signs, re-identifiable (Gambetta 2009, p. 195). While thisfunctionality of nicknames is plausible, nicknaming may also, intentionally orotherwise, engender solidarity amongst these criminals who coordinate across whole
regions and countries.
Of the 278 cases in the police files, 33 have no nickname. A cross-table
analysis by cohort based on the estimated year baptised shows a declining use ofnicknames with the cases of no nickname mainly in the youngest cohort after 1992 as
Table 9.1 shows below.

38

Indeed, the Georgian government specifically utilised this obligation to its benefit when writing antimafia legislation in 2005 and now the possession of a nickname known in the underworld in Georgia isstated as evidence of ‘belonging to the thieves’ world’ (R13).

251

CohortNickname or Not = N (%)

Total

No Nickname

Nickname

1952-1971

0 (0%)

23 (100%)

23

1972-1981

2 (3%)

55 (97%)57

1982-1991

7 (8%)

81 (92%)88

1992-2004

24 (22%)86 (78%)

110

Total

33 (12%)245 (88%)

278

Table 9.1: number of qurdebi with nicknames and percentages by cohort determined byapproximate age baptised Source: AOCU-T & K 2004

The table shows a steady increase in the lack of nicknaming. The oldest cohort
has 0% with no nickname, compared to the 1972-1981 cohort who has 3% with nonickname, 1982-1991 has 8%, and the youngest cohort has a 22% rate of qurdebi withno nickname. A Chi-Square test comparing the youngest two cohorts found thedifference to be statistically significant (Pearson 7.166, p = 0.010, phi -0.190, p =0.008). In 89 cases the nickname appeared to be simply a diminutive but was recordedin the police files as a nickname though these strictly speaking fall outside the formal
definition of nicknames. However, the trend still holds when diminutives wereinterpreted and coded instead as ‘no nickname’; the number of cases with nonickname still increases as the cohorts get younger and actually hold a majority (56 to54) in the youngest cohort. However, the results once diminutives are coded as ‘nonickname’ lack statistical significance; comparing the last two cohorts using ChiSquare gives Pearson 2.441, p = 0.151.
The explanation for this overall change in nickname usage may be to do with252

levels of socialisation. As shown elsewhere (chapter 7) recruitment practices changed
and it appears to have become easier to take the title of qurdi in Georgia in the 1990s.
It may well be possible then that the initiation itself became less protracted and those
who did not want to, for whatever reason, were not forced by any tradition to take anickname. As we have seen it is likely that monitoring of recruitment probably
weakened so a plausible explanation lies in a lack of rule-following during initiation.
Along the same lines of logic, those that were being initiated had not shown
the same levels of dedication in terms of crime commission and time in prison as pastcohorts might have done (see chapter 7). Without the same level of socialisation into
the thieves’ world, and having already broken the rules with impunity, it makes sensethat new recruits may not have had a deep sense of being ‘born again’ duringinitiation. If this is true the decline in the use of nicknames would be another key
indicator here of the lowering of barriers to entry into the thieves’ group, the degreeof self-identification with roles in the thieves’ world and the weakening of symbolic
boundaries between an inside and an outside. It perhaps also suggests that new
recruits were not so much relying on a name within the qurdebi status group so muchas on their own reputations.
There is a further plausible explanation for the change in nicknaming.
Younger qurdebi, not so socialised into the thieves’ norms may well have understoodthat having a nickname just makes you more vulnerable to police identification andpossible framing on trumped up charges, as Gambetta (2009a) suggests. Perhaps thendeclining to use a nickname was also a rational strategy by actors with a disinclination
towards prison life to avoid unwanted attention that outweighed the desire forsurrender to any higher ideal.

253

A further important indicator however of an endogenous weakening of themoral power of the thieves’ idea is the increasing power and number of those career
criminals who simply do not bother with getting initiated as a thief-in-law though theymight make good candidates. A few commentators now clearly distinguish thecriminals that emerged at the end of the 1980s and 1990s in the Soviet Union known
as ‘authorities’ and ‘bandits’ from the qurdebi (Galeotti 2002; Volkov 2002). For
these criminals the thieves’ world evidently offered neither the material benefits nor
the moral force to bring them into its orbit and surrender themselves to it.

9.3 Summary of Changes in Commitment Mechanisms

Above I have suggested that whilst the obshchak remains a prevalent part of
the thieves’ world in Georgia, declining use of nicknames, increasing wealth andmaterialism and rates of marriage indicate decline in the rational commitment
mechanism of burning bridges with common social networks and familial ties thatserve to bind actors to the thieves’ world and maintain barriers to exit. This also likely
negatively impacts processes of affective and normative commitment in which
solidarity and surrender to the community bring about feelings of solidarity.
Table 9.2 below presents some of the commitment inducing features discussed
above. All of the following features in the table were present in the early forms of thethieves’ world of the 1930s when it was a prison fraternity and already mentioned inpassing above. However, the table also states whether a given commitment inducing
feature’s presence has been constant or has since become unstable. None of thefeatures in Table 9.2 are unique to the thieves’ world; each one of in the table canfound in Kanter’s (1968, 1972) studies where they are identified as significant factors
254

in contributing to the success of utopian communities. Each one of the features in thetable was present in proportionally twice as many successful utopian communities
compared to unsuccessful ones in Kanter’s study. Of an original 34 significant
commitment arrangements uncovered by Kanter in successful utopian communities,
the thieves’ world utilised 18, presented in the table below, and these can very
plausibly go towards explaining the longevity and the resilience of the thieves’ world
up to the present day. Other commitment arrangements that may be present in thethieves’ world but do not make Kanter’s list as significant in increasing longevity areleft out of the table.

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COMMITMENT INDUCING FEATURE IN INITIALREMAININGTHIEVES’ FRATERNITYPRESENCE

Distinction of residents and non-residents, only residents

Nopermitted (i.e. must be a prisoner)
Private property forbidden

No

Communal ‘work’ (obshchak)Yes

No reimbursement for defectors

Yes

Sanctions for exit, removal of privilege

Yes

Special terms for inside/outside

Yes

Outside viewed negatively

YesStandardised symbols (tattoos as uniform)

Yes

Specialised language

Yes

Public denunciation of defectors

Yes

More than two-thirds of the day spent together

No

Daily group meetings

No

Songs about community

Yes

Members rarely leave community

No

Control on sexual relationships

No

Families cut away

No

Instruction on doctrine given

Yes

Members distinguished on moral grounds

Yes

Table 9.2: commitment mechanisms in the original thieves’ world and whether each is stillpresent.

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(Kanter, 1972, 80-112; Tilly 2006, p. 73)

The table shows that many commitment inducing features still exist, but thosethat do tend to relate to maintaining symbolic boundaries such as the use of a
specialised language and the preservation of a distinct image through such means as
instructing young people in the thieves’ idea. These symbolic boundaries areimportant in keeping the thieves’ world alive even if only in a mythologised andemblematic form.
An implication of Table 9.2 is that as commitment-inducing features are lost,
the thieves’ world must rely on incentives other than commitment. The table showsfeatures that directly speak to cognitive cost benefit analysis. The ever-present
institution of the obshchak and the punishment of defectors through the removal of all
support and privileges help maintain cognitive commitment (R40). One problem withrelying too heavily on these purely rational commitment mechanisms, according toscholars of human resources, is that ‘employees whose tenure in the organisation isbased primarily on need may see little reason to do more than is required to maintaintheir membership in the organisation’ (Meyer & Allen 1991, p. 74).
The problem lies in the fact that attitudes to the thieves’ code and idea canbecome defined by the logic of instrumentality rather than the logic ofappropriateness (March & Olsen 1984; 2004). The higher goals of the thieves’ world
become means to an end rather than an end in themselves. Paoli (2003; 2008) sees
something like this happening in the Italian mafias as they become affected by themodernised society around them. In her terms, generalised reciprocity, where benefitsof an investment are put off until an unspecified time, has been replaced in the Italianmafias by specific reciprocity where investments require immediate payoffs and257

gratification. The wealth of some qurdebi and the assets accumulated suggest that thishas also happened to the qurdebi in Georgia.
Clearly, the table shows that there are many commitment mechanisms still inplace and still prescribed by the thieves’ law however on the level of individual
agents many of them are not being adhered to and have been passed into redundancy.
Though it is difficult to observe this directly, the consequences of such redundancy
have been revealed in this chapter such as the accumulation of wealth, themaintenance of social ties outside the trust network and the decline in the use ofnicknames.
The causes of the decline of the effectiveness of the commitment mechanisms
built into the original thieves’ code are multiple. Perhaps foremost amongst them
however is the move from being an exclusively prison based fraternity to a mafia
existing outside the Soviet camps. The change to open society made many of thecommitment inducing features redundant or impractical. Furthermore, the society into
which the thieves-in-law emerged was itself changing with a growing second
economy and wealth inequalities. These changes sped up dramatically with thecollapse of the Soviet Union. It may be hypothesised that the adaptations of the
Georgian qurdebi in these conditions brought about the decline in the effectiveness ofthe commitment mechanisms discussed here.
Another factor surely influencing this effectiveness, one which has been
discussed in other chapters, concerns the ability of the more senior leaders of thequrdebi to monitor the behaviour and attitudes towards the traditional thieves’ codethat they themselves had lived by. It may be supposed that the opportunity costs on
those leaders increased as they found their activities increasingly profitable, though
their own original adherence to the thieves’ code should also not be overstated or258

portrayed as some pure and honest past. Thus, part of the reason the code and its
attendant commitment mechanisms lost its power was due, as Chalidze (1977, p. 46)
says, to ‘the constant jockeying for position among the elite, who exploit ambiguitiesof the traditional code for their own advantage.’ Thus, the thieves’ code whilst
apparently designed to induce commitment, has not proven impervious to the effects
of socio-economic changes or the opportunistic behaviour of individual actors.

9.4 Conclusion
The aim of this chapter has been to address what Tilly (2006) calls the‘internal incentives’ of a trust network. He argues that trust networks more than otherforms of organisation rely on commitment of members relative to the use of capitaland coercion. I have looked at three ‘binding devices’ which raise barriers to exit
through a mix of rational, affective and normative inducements. Moving beyond this,I have asked whether these arrangements have been maintained despite the hugesocio-economic changes witnessed in Georgia.
The conclusion was reached that some have and some have not and while it iseasier to think of these binding devices in terms of rational disincentives to exit, themore intangible, normative and affective elements emphasised in organisational
studies of commitment, are also hugely important in maintaining committed membersof a trust network. Furthermore, as Tilly (2006) predicts, a move away fromcommitment as an incentive to capital puts the trust network at risk to other trust
networks or organisations which can offer more in the way of this capital as anincentive. This might help explain why some criminals are choosing to either exit thequrdebi network or not enter in the first place. This all depends on the value that thequrdebi status can fetch, and it is to this element that I now turn.
259

10. Maintaining Distinction: the Qurdebi as a Criminal
Status Group‘While he is undoubtedly a professional thief, I should a few years ago [before he wascommitted to prison] have been ashamed to be seen on the street with him. I say thisnot out of a spirit of snobbishness but simply for business reasons I feel that myreputation would have suffered in the eyes of my friends to be seen in the company ofa booster [shoplifter].’A ‘big time confidence man’ quoted in Edwin Sutherland’s The Professional Thief(1956, p. 201)

Andro Alpaidze, a 60-year old resident of Tbilisi stated his views on thequrdebi and the anti-mafia laws quite clearly to a journalist (Mamiashvili 2006): ‘He[the local qurdi] is always ready to help – unlike the police. The new law [of 2005 on
organised crime] says that not only these criminals but their supporters too can bepunished. That means they should arrest me too.’ A puzzle in studying organised
crime lies in explaining ongoing societal support for violence-wielding groups. In the1870s, Italian politician Leopoldo Franchetti noted ‘a tendency to turn a Mafioso intoa legendary type’ (in Gambetta 1993, p. 46) in southern Italy. In societies that have
low levels of trust, the mafia can employ myth to encourage the idea of their own
trustworthiness as ‘men of honour’ and ‘supermen’ of an elite group (Ibid).
This is central to the idea of criminal resilience. Societal support for organised
crime groups grants such groups a pool of potential recruits as well as a buffer of
popular opinion against attack by the state that enables their ongoing existence.
Measuring such support is difficult, and explaining it more so. Does support for260

mafias come from respect for a different lifestyle, a fear of their violent methods, or a
mixture of both? Surely few people would want to go on record criticising the mafia
so how deep does support for a mafia group actually run?
Furthermore, support is not merely present or not in a given society; theMafiosi themselves work for it. The involvement of the mafia itself in its own cultural
production can be in some cases a very deliberate strategy. Mafias in different
countries have gone to great lengths to maintain a good image and reputation amongst
the society in which they exist. The Yakuza invested in the Japanese film industry andthereby were able to manipulate the way they were represented (Varese 2006).
Reputation and image manipulation are then vital assets for a mafia, as they
are for most businesses worried about brand management. Some businesses andprofessions such as doctors and lawyers are particularly susceptible to the effects ofchanges in reputation (Gambetta 1993). For a mafia however it is even more
important to the extent that reputation may actually substitute completely for the
production of their key asset, violence. By lowering production costs on violence, afearsome reputation can expand profit margins for any mafia. And when violence isused, as it must be at times to maintain a reputation, fearsomeness combined withslickly managed public relations can minimise negative externalities produced by theuse of that violence.
This chapter is concerned with the changing societal support and reputation of
the qurdebi. I will treat the name of the kanonieri qurdebi as a criminal trademark
whose reputation rests on a certain status distinction based upon, as Max Weber (inWhimster 1992) had it, clear differences in lifestyle that are in turn advertised andacclaimed by the qurdebi themselves. I will discuss this with reference to signallingtheory again, developing the idea of signalling an identity, in this case one that clearly261

demarcates a collective belonging to a status group that allows certain underlying
qualities to be inferred by the receiver of the signals. I then go on to discuss the
problematic issue of managing the signals in a changing environment and the methods
the qurdebi have employed to maintain a credible status distinction between
themselves and other violence-wielding competitors. Finally, I draw on survey andinterview data to suggest that the qurdebi ‘brand’ is threatened by a potentiallydisastrous loss of reputation.

10.1 Criminal Collective Identities: Signalling Status

Chapter 7 dealt with how potential qurdebi might signal their character inbeing recruited. This chapter is concerned with looking at how the qurdebi, once they
are made men, may signal that status to those outside the trust network including
other criminals and wider society. Just as the qurdebi must decide whether a potential
recruit is up to the job, so the petty criminal, inmate or businessman being made anoffer of protection, must decide whether the signals being emitted by the offerer
actually manifest a property or characteristic they can trust as real (Spence 1973;
Bacharach & Gambetta 2001; Bliege-Bird 2005; Gambetta 2009a, 2009b). A person
must successfully signal his belonging to a status group, the kanonieri qurdebi, inorder to reveal himself as one of a set of individuals who carry unmistakable qualities.
Based mainly on the work of Max Weber, status groups are associated withprestige or honour and are juxtaposed with class identities that are based on property
and wealth. Amongst other things status groups are most primarily founded on
distinctive and exclusive lifestyles. ‘In context, status honour is normally expressedby the fact that above all else a specific style of life can be expected from all those262

who wish to belong to the circle’ (Weber in Whimster 2003, p. 187, original italics).
Privileged groups who maintain a certain status often signal this through ways of
behaviour that are defined in codes of conduct. Those of the nobility, for example,
may refrain from physical labour, have certain cultural tastes, patterns of consumption
or, in the past at least, a disdain for commonplace commercial activities.
A key element in the formation and maintenance of status groups is thepreservation of social boundaries and the recognition of these boundaries by boththose inside and outside the status group. As Bourdieu writes (1996 p. 104), acts ofconsecration must ‘get the “elite” boundary recognised by those it excludes no lessthan by those it includes.’ This recognition by those on the outside is, for Ridgeway(2001), a matter of status belief diffusion where this denotes the spreading of certain
ideas about a social group regardless of direct experience such that the alreadyexisting nominal distinction between groups of people becomes a value distinction
about the competence of that group and the amount of respect and deference to beafforded them (Ridgeway 2001, p. 330). When these status beliefs are beneficial tothose about whom they are held, the issue is to how to maintain that value distinction.
Status, like reputation, is not immune to fluctuations and beliefs in the value
distinctions across groups and by status can change. Thus an elite status, for example,
can still be diminished by negative experiences of those individuals who belong tothat status amongst those who do not hold the status (Ibid p. 328).
This brings the discussion to Gambetta and Bacharach’s (2001) idea of
categorical identity signalling where certain beliefs about a category of people canenable unobservable traits to be inferred by receivers of signals that identify a person
as belonging to that category. In this case the receiver witnesses a signature thatreveals the identity of a category of individuals. The receiver is more likely to believe263

that the signaller really belongs to that category if the signal is difficult or costly toacquire and display. This cost could be constituted through painful group initiation
procedures such as all over body tattoos or mutilation, complex and secretive
language or hand gestures, or the danger of punishment of a faker displaying thesignal (Gambetta 2009a). Once it is established that the signaller indeed belongs to
the category of individuals signalled, unobservable attributes of the individual can bediscerned based on the belief that all individuals who belong to that category have x,y and z properties, that is, members of that category bear a particular reputation forcertain properties (Bacharach & Gambetta 2001 pp. 165-166).
According to Gambetta and Bacharach (2001), categories of identity havetheir advantages and disadvantages, on the one hand they allow the diffusion of
reputation more rapidly, on the other, the signatures themselves that inform others ofmembership must obey the law of conformity: ‘a category of people can get identity
signals to work only by coordinating across members to adopt matching signatures’(Bacharach & Gambetta 2001, p. 166). Thus, for a group identity such as a mafia’s it
is vital that conformity is regulated and monitored within the group as well as fromthe threat of a mimicker.
Joel Podolny (2005, 2009) has argued that the study of status can be seen as
signalling, shifting the emphasis away from the concept of reputation bearers to statuscarriers and how this status is communicated. He notes (2005 p. 18) that reputationand status are related but distinct assets on the market for any brand name. He
suggests, as also alluded to by Ridgeway (2001), that whereas reputation is built on
past demonstrations of certain characteristics, status is a less tangible, symbolic
property that belongs to groups and classes of people. Status distinctions can be morestable than reputations, which, by contrast, are liable to fluctuate for many reasons.

264For example, large firms or criminal groups with a pool of workers cannot make surethat performance of each individual always reaches the right standard, information
affecting reputation can sometimes be false, and prices for services fluctuate making
perfect control over a collective reputation difficult. For this reason, status issomething worth investing in and maintaining: ‘the greater market participants’uncertainty about the underlying quality of a producer and the producer’s product, themore the market participants will rely on the producer’s status to make inferences
about quality’ (Podolny 2005, p. 18; Podolny & Lynn 2009). Where status
distinctions are present in uncertain transactions, identity signalling is concerned withestablishing whether the signal establishes the identity of a carrier of a title. It is fromthe status of a successfully signalled title that unobservable qualities are inferred
based on diffused status beliefs.
Status as signalling can also be thought of as a mimic beset trust game
(Bacharach & Gambetta 2001). To maintain distinction, the signals that make up
status distinctions need to be protected from impostors, in the same way thatcopyrights of certain brand names are protected in the business world. This can bedifficult in that the gaining of deference from others is something that many aspire to
and wish to fake the signals that might bring this about. Furthermore, as status
distinction is often founded on lifestyle this can be something easily falsely replicatedby mimickers. Moreover, it is not always easy to enforce conformity amongst
members of the status group in signalling their identity of the group and this mightalso affect the boundaries between status groups.
This latter problem, as I will now go on to discuss appears to be the biggest
problem for the qurdebi in recent times in Georgia. Individual qurdebi must be able tosignal their identity as bona fide qurdebi but this requires that the law of conformity265be met and this is not easy in changing times. There is a strong link here between
signalling during recruitment and subsequent signalling of criminal identity once
recruited due to the fact that if a recruit is not up to the job then his ability toefficiently and successfully signal his status might also be lacking. Alternatively, it ispossible that he might be able to signal his status well but that this in the final analysis
does not correlate with his actual qualities when these are called for.
The weakening of the status beliefs and thus status distinction based on
growing numbers of negative experiences with individual qurdebi can aggregate to
finally affect the viability and resilience of the qurdebi, at least as a name worth
wanting, that is, one that has some extra-legal market value. Therefore, if thesignalling game in recruitment falls out of equilibrium and fails to sort the good fromthe bad, and this is not quickly remedied, we should expect to see a corresponding
change in the signalling of the qurdebi identity at a later stage. Furthermore, as wehave seen in chapter 9, the qurdebi have changed their commitment to certain ideals
and the corresponding lifestyle. This can also have devastating consequences for the
maintenance of status.
The rest of the chapter begins by looking at the qurdebi as a status groupwithin Georgian society and their signalling of this status. It then goes on to discuss
the problem of maintaining conformity in identity signalling in changing socioeconomic conditions and the effects to reputation when the identity is signalled but
the signals do not match with the expected qualities.

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10.2 The Qurdebi as a Status Group

Just as nobilities manifest their higher caste through dress, mannerisms,
speech, and lifestyle so the qurdebi also maintain distinction through a plurality ofsigns that make up a criminal trademark. I now briefly look at some of the aspects thatmade the qurdebi distinctive: frugality, language and body art.
The qurdebi signalled their distinctive status by displaying various aspects of
their lifestyle. For example, famously, the qurdebi displayed contempt for any type ofmaterialism instead leading a life of frugality (Gurov 1995; Varese 2001; Oleinik
2003). This mainly involved embracing the prison ethos and rejecting wealth. This
lifestyle precluded taking a wife or creating families. This aspect of the qurdebi also
includes dress sense that should also remain simple and unpretentious. Thus, ascetic
living combined with authority in arbitration are part of the original marks of
distinctiveness of the qurdebi, borrowed from their prison origins.
Another identifying mark was a specific way of speaking. In gaining a
reputation for fairness in decision-making, an important part of this, as cited byrespondents, was the ability to talk well, understand and apply informal rules – thegageba – and thus be good arbitrators without recourse to violence. Speaking
qurdulad is to talk in the thieves’ tongue, to be able to reason and judge well
replicated by those on the street who already speak kai bichurad, the goodfellas’
tongue. Moreover, the qurdebi and their followers used a specific vocabulary, known
as fenya, the use of which in the present day can be employed by prosecutors for the
purposes of proving a person’s belonging to the thieves’ world (R13). In his
anthropological study of the ‘social languages and orders’ that Georgian youth makesense of, Koehler writes that ‘the crucial criteria generating prestige is not strength or267

brutality but the image of the sovereign and righteous: to withstand the threat ofviolence by sticking to the accepted codes of speaking true and just. Thus, individual
honour is created’ (Koehler 1999). Koehler identifies the family, the thieves’ worldand ‘the school of the street’ as social orders from which Georgian young people takecues as to social distinctions. A specific way of speaking, qurdulad, or in the thieves’tongue, was then one method of creating distinction.
Finally, a further example of a conventional signal employed by the qurdebi is
the wearing of elaborate tattoos. The tattoos tell stories of crimes committed andplaces spent doing time. Tattoos could identify someone individually while others
were general status symbols. Some were elaborate in order to make faking difficult,and the qurdebi protected their insignias by punishment of death to any non-qurdi
displaying these (Varese, 2001 p. 154). The pictures available of various Georgian
qurdebi still show a certain uniformity in tattooing with the eight point black andwhite star being displayed on both shoulders (AOCU-T 2004). On some, angels are
displayed on the chest holding a cross that appears to hang in the middle of the chest.
Such religious symbolism draws a parallel with the ascetic lives of Gulag prisoners
and churchmen.
These various distinctive lifestyle factors allowed the qurdebi and thosefollowing the thieves’ understandings to build a distinctive status. I will look later at
how this was defended from impostors. However, this argument that the qurdebi are astatus group relies on the idea that those outside the group maintain a positive value
distinction towards this group and therefore allow the qurdebi to accumulatedeference. The fact that such a positive value distinction towards the qurdebi
specifically and the thieves’ world more generally existed, and may still exist in some
sectors of Georgian society, has been alluded to by respondents, government reports,268

journalistic accounts, and academic works. I will now refer to these different sourcesin discussing the recognition of the status distinction of the qurdebi.
Anton Oleinik’s book (2003), Organised Crime, Prisons and Post-Soviet
Societies might be seen as a full attempt to establish the socio-psychological fact ofpositive normative orientations towards deviance, and specifically organised crime
within the context of the thieves’ world, in post-soviet countries. He writes (2003,
original italics), ‘the informal norms of the penal environment and the society thatsurrounds it are close whereas there is a major disjuncture between formal andinformal norms in the prison and in the society that surrounds it,’ and therefore,
inmates and the citizenry use ‘congruent normative markers in their everyday lives.’
Oleinik argues then that support for the thieves’ world is based on ‘the significant
scope’ of the penal subculture’s values within post-soviet society following the logic
of appropriateness where these values are judged as good and right.
Along these lines, Humphreys (2002 pp. 112-125) argues that supporting thesecareer criminals was not simply about power and influence or fear but ‘that they[thieves-in-law] are the kind of people who have law...the whole notion of themselves
as the kind of people who are disciplined, orderly, and subject to law [appealed](original italics).’ The thieves’ law can have instrumental value for those that produce
it and those that follow it, and it can also be valued as somehow socially appropriate,that is, an ethical stance worked into the fabric of culture.
The good name of the qurdebi in Georgia is frequently referred to along withthe tendency to respect and mythologise these criminal characters, ‘in Georgian
culture, criminal figures have often been characterised as servants of the public good,
embodying notions of honour, justice or even democracy’ (Godson et al. 2003 p. 9).
Serio & Razinkin (1994 p. 1) cite a 1993 survey of schoolchildren in Georgia that269

showed that 25% of respondents stated that they wanted to be a qurdi when they grew
up. Tevzadze (n.d) mentions that a Tbilisi newspaper had received letters asking forcareer advice on how to become a qurdi. And Godson et al. (2003) report that thechildren of one school opted to elect their own representative to the criminal world.
Thus, Georgian scholars Glonti & Lobjanidze are surely right when they state (2004
p. 115): ‘it is possible to observe the widespread propaganda of the “thieves’
movement,” agitation for the “zakonniki” as “business people,” so to say, “thieves
with a human face” and the romanticisation of these leaders in the eyes of the
population and especially the youth.’This type of popularity was perhaps fed in the Soviet Union by a state that
disparaged the very notion of law yet used legal devices for political efficacy. Thisview was summed up by one respondent (R40): ‘the qurdebi had their own law andthey had their own justice, but the main thing was that you could get the truth withthem and everyone knows that at the court you can’t get justice, the prosecutor wants
you to be guilty, so you can’t get justice.’ This point was maybe overstated in a
Georgian article of 2006: ‘Georgians…automatically resist law in any and allforms…It could also be said that the society of Thieves has given the country ofGeorgia the only uncorrupted and enforceable judicial system Georgia has everknown’ (Nordin & Glonti, 2006). Thus, one news article on the Georgian fight againstorganised crime noted (Ablotiya 2006): ‘the main battle – still ahead – is the battle forminds. There is a need to outgrow a few generations for young people to cease talking
in thieves’ jargon…today, a large part of the young still think razborki, obshchak,malyava…are absolute norms of life.’
The positive evaluations and idealisation of the qurdebi in Georgian society
bring into being a status distinction that the qurdebi themselves perpetuate. Just as in270the prison where the qurdebi maintain clear boundaries between themselves and otherprisoners through distinctive behaviour, the qurdebi outside of prison attempt toportray themselves, and are portrayed by others, as fundamentally distinctive social
actors who behave according to different standards than others, criminal or otherwise.
In this, the qurdebi benefit from a long history that has helped to lionise them as
unbreakable men of honour and plays on the idea of surviving the repressions ofsuccessive authoritarian governments.
In terms of contrasting lifestyles, respondents brought up the idea of the life
course and opportunities in such repressive environments. If a career in thecommunist party was undesirable, other paths were open in the criminal world or,
during more liberal periods of the Soviet Union’s existence, a life in the church.
These were fundamental and long-term lifestyle choices. In terms of education, thefiles on individual qurdebi from Kutaisi suggest that the majority of them finish highschool without going on to higher education (AOCU-K 2004). This could mean thatonce other avenues are closed in life, the thievish lifestyle appears attractive. Perhaps
though, future qurdebi had already chosen this lifestyle in school and therefore
precluded themselves from following any other type of life.
There was no clear consensus from respondents on the effect of class onchoosing one career path or over another. One Georgian academic in Tbilisi felt thecriminal world was mainly open to the lower classes in the city (R8). An analysis of
the origins of qurdebi from Tbilisi’s districts could not confirm or reject thishypothesis confidently. Indeed, the main areas that the qurdebi came from were theworking class suburbs of Gldani and Samgori, yet these are more populous areas, andthere were also significant numbers from the older, higher class and less densely
populated districts, such as Vera and Mtatsminda (AOCU-T 2008).

271

This situation held also in Kutaisi, where the qurdebi hailed from areas ofvarying class categories (AOCU-K 2004). This was summarised by one Kutaisi based
respondent who, when asked what attracted youth to the thieves’ world, suggested it
was instead the appeal of an idealised sense of justice and the style of life that thiswas based on:‘I don’t think it’s a class thing, I mean Gora [part of Kutaisi that produced somequrdebi] is a mixed region with kids from all classes. It’s a newish area compared to
Sapichkhia [part of Kutaisi that also produced qurdebi] and is more working classthan Sapichkhia too. Sapichkhia is old, traditional, Imeretian area of Kutaisi. It mightjust be to do with a sense of fairness or justice, acting honestly, like a mentality andway of life’ (R35).

Though Sapichkhia was a more well-heeled district with traditional housing
and some families claiming noble heritage, the region produced as many if not morequrdebi than more working class districts that were constructed around factories
during Soviet times.
Regardless of class then, a respect for the values and corresponding lifestyle,including a unique verbal and visual culture, was cited as a common reason for thevalue distinction made between the qurdebi and other social actors whether criminals
or judges. Living chaste, quasi-religious lives in prison, renouncing material andphysical pleasures, promoting a vision of justice that people identified with, refusing
to work or collaborate with the regime, and displaying a specific appearance throughmodest clothing and tattooing, the qurdebi appeared to offer an alternative in life forthose that could get close to them. Indeed, when religious observance was banned,
this in effect closed off one competing lifestyle in the Soviet Union, leaving choices
limited. ‘When Stalin closed all the churches people couldn’t go to the church, but thequrdebi took on the role of the church, they couldn’t carry weapons or anything like272

that, and [they] had no money, so it was them who were living the ascetic life then’(R40).

10.3 The Trademark and Foiling Fakers

The qurdebi as a high status brand name and identity that maintains value on
the protection provision and dispute resolution markets faces threats just as otherestablished trademarks might. These are, most primarily, the threat of mimicry byoutsiders and the coordination, enforcement and maintenance of conformity ofmembers of the status group adopting matching signatures to identify themselves. I
begin by discussing this first problem and how the qurdebi might overcome it.
As Kaminski (2004, chap 1) writes, the first question for a newcomer to a
Polish prison is ‘are you a grypsmen [high status inmate]?’ The question puts the
responder in a difficult situation: saying ‘no’ straightaway relegates you to a positionof disrespect which can be dangerous, while by saying ‘yes’ you must then prove it.
Similarly, in Georgia the question: ‘are you a kai bichi?’ or ‘do you follow theunderstandings?’ brings about the same situation. The different masti or ‘suits’ andwithin them the varying status ranks such as the ‘goats’, ‘cockerels’, ‘workers’ and soon all need to be clearly signalled when working out the true identity of someone
within that subculture. The qurdebi were no exception to this. How do people
recognise that they are dealing with someone from that status group or an affiliate ofit, what sort of security can be given to signals to stop them being usurped by othersof lower status groups?

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The aspects of the qurdebi brand – frugality and the prison as a way of life,
and a unique verbal and visual culture - are all comprised of conventional signals that
denote status and can be understood widely within the post-Soviet context (Gambetta
2009a chapter 6). These signals are not of themselves necessarily costly to display fora faker. Instead, they use widely available signs built on mutually understoodconventions and require other forms of deterrence for fakers, such as the threat ofpunishment for displaying a tattoo that only qurdebi have an exclusive right to.
Furthermore, these packages of signals can only work given the existence of thesymbolic boundary created through initiation rituals that mark an unambiguous
distinction between criminals. Even then it is still far from clear how correctly theidentity of a potential qurdi can be read. The lifestyle differences that are exhibited
are not enough. Ways of behaving, language and tattoos that had been exclusive to theprison camps can be aped quite easily, especially in countries where a great many
people ended up incarcerated at some point. The penal subculture foisted various
different identities onto those imprisoned and those identities slowly became part of acounter culture outside prison as well (Dobson 2009).
In overcoming the problem of mimicry, the qurdebi make use first andforemost of one signature that is supremely hard to mimic – face and namerecognition. Respondents consistently reported that recognition of a qurdi was basedon personal knowledge of who the qurdebi were in their local area, at least by
nickname. This seems to support the idea that the qurdebi, at least in the early stagesof their criminal careers, controlled their own locales, often where they grew up andthis fits with the data presented earlier (see chapter 8). Furthermore, in this way, it
could easily be worked out if smaller criminals were working on behalf of a particularqurdi or not. Displaying signature features of belonging to a group is secondary to274

simply showing your face to make someone aware of the individual they are dealing
with. One respondent (R23) recognised a particular qurdi in a meeting to recover astolen car: ‘I don’t know exactly what he [qurdi D.] did…I don’t really know muchabout him or what he was controlling, but I knew him by his face and his name. I
mean, everyone knows everyone here right?’ Or as another respondent put it, ‘All ofGeorgia knew who was a kanonieri qurdi…[its] a circle of authoritative criminals
and…it was known…who in Georgia was a kanonieri qurdi, who is just below them,
who today or tomorrow might become a qurdi and so on…if you went on the street
and asked a kid, he could tell you who was the qurdi there’ (R20).
The qurdebi in Georgia then rely on identification through face and name andhave distinctive mannerisms and speech. The question may arise as to why thequrdebi then need to be qurdebi at all and bother going to the trouble of becoming an
initiated qurdi instead of just relying on their own personal reputations. There areincentives to investing in the brand name of kanonieri qurdi rather than relying
simply on a personal reputation however. As Gambetta and Bacharach (2001, p. 166)
state, collective reputations can be built and disseminated quicker than individual
ones. A franchise operates according to a similar logic. Franchisors can grow quicker
through avoiding full investment and liability for each enterprise and maintain control
over franchisees by tying them into the fortunes of the franchise whilst demanding
protection and standardisation of its trademarks, business concept, and methods. For
the franchisee on the other hand, the reputation of the brand can do all the work inbringing in custom. This was summarised by one respondent (R17): ‘I remember myfather’s friend’s wife, a very dignified woman, you would never imagine her having
anything to do with this type of thing, coming and asking me “do you know somequrdi, I have a problem I need sorting out…” she didn’t have any idea what she was275

asking for just that she had heard the qurdebi can help you.’ Here the brand does all
the work in advertising the qurdebi service.
Furthermore, in the context of the Soviet and post-Soviet prisons where there
is a high turnover of inmates and an architecture that includes wide, open spaces
allowing high numbers of transactions, belonging to a status group can lower costs
associated with building up an individual reputation by proving oneself over and overagain every time an inmate moves prison (Gambetta 2009a). The answer toKaminski’s (2004) question posed in Polish prisons – are you a grypsmen? – and its
variants in Georgia is indicative of this. Kaminski states that the best answer to this is:‘ask other grypsmen.’ Those who are already known to be high status criminals will
be able to tell if you are also one or not. This system of referral implies a network ofties through which information is maintained about who is and who is not high status.
In a penal state such as the Soviet Union with a high turnover of prisoners suchdevices as the ‘vorovskoi progon’ - the thieves’ equivalent of a newsletter distributed
through the penal estate - would be indispensable for preventing the continuous
proving of oneself upon arriving in new prisons and allows the qurdebi status a great
mobility. One respondent, a prison worker (R25), claimed that in her prison it would
not take longer than an hour to find out the position of a new inmate in the prison
hierarchy.
Analogously, movement from region to region outside a prison might begreatly facilitated by investing in acquiring the qurdebi name. Whereas in a small
town a qurdi might be known personally and have a reputation regardless of his
belonging to the qurdebi, once outside this locale his face and name become known
because he is a kanoneri qurdi and this fact in itself denotes various details about theperson. Being a qurdi helps to spread these details. The qurdi title allows the qurdebi276

greater mobility and transferable status. One of the biggest problems in finding penal
policy to combat the qurdebi was their mobile authority (R42).
In a criminal underworld under constant threat of crackdowns by the state, theability to move to new environments and quickly establish oneself is a key factor forthe survival of a successful criminal careerist. Just as having the title in prison avoids
painful initiation rituals every time one moves prison camp, so signalling a belonging
to the qurdebi brand reduces the costs of proving one’s criminal qualities every time a
new business springs up in town. Those qualities can be deduced from the muchlarger collective reputation of the qurdebi that has already been built up.
Thus, there are good reasons to invest in becoming a qurdi. Nesting a personal
reputation within the wider reputation of the qurdebi protects the status from
impostors by personalising relationships with clients in a locale and utilising face andname recognition while at the same time reducing the costs of advertising andviolence production by utilising a brand name. In particular, the qurdebi brandprovides returns to the individual in terms of maintaining high status once anindividual enters the prison system or moves to a different region.

10.4 Protecting High Status: Standardising Signatures

Other than protecting trademarks from imposters, a further problem for
franchisors is maintaining standardisation amongst the franchisees. Franchisees must
therefore be carefully selected and endorsed in the first place. The qurdebi also face
this problem, and as we have seen in Chapter 7 changing recruitment dynamics have
led to younger qurdebi being initiated based on less stringent criteria than previously,277

going as far as recruits simply buying the qurdi title. This might have a negative
impact on overall collective reputation and status. Once substandard individuals gain
possession of the title, signalling a collective identity becomes beset with issues oftrust. Membership of the qurdebi maintains value only conditionally upon the beliefof the receiver of identity signals that those who are able to produce these signals
invariably have certain attributes (Bacharach & Gambetta 2001). Once this stops
being invariable, the belief of the receiver can quickly wane and with it the reputationof the whole group. Below I will show that there are certain indicators that suggest
this to be the case in Georgia.
The complaints of the qurdebi-traditionalists about those recently recruited
touch on different areas of their ‘work performance’ as qurdebi. Firstly, there isdissatisfaction with the performance of qurdebi duties such as paying into and looking
after the obshchak and turning up at skhodka. As one expert respondent recalled(R10):‘You can’t know what someone will be like. Like this guy, Z. When he was on thestreet he was a real guy, he did everything right, and when he became a qurdi he justbecame a drug addict, he didn’t do anything…he didn’t turn up to any skhodki for along time….Can you imagine? It’s like at work here. See my friend? He’s head ofdivision, you think he can just not come to work without trouble? That’s how it is forthem too.’

Eventually Z. landed in prison and was uncrowned. Organising and attending
skhodki is important. One former prison governor (R21) reported that skhodki were
often held in the prison hospital of which there was only one on the territory of Soviet
Georgia. In most cases attendance could easily be assured through a bribe in the rightplace and feigned injury. When this proved impossible, feigning was substituted by278

real self-mutilation ensuring a trip to the hospital and attendance at the skhodka. This
dedication to performing thievish duties appears to have diminished in some cases in
the present day.
Secondly, some younger generation qurdebi have been picked up for crimes
not befitting the status. This was exemplified by the example of a young Georgian
qurdi (born in 1983) who was recently caught trying to steal a bottle of alcohol from asupermarket in Moscow. Such petty shoplifting has never been part of a qurdi’s
repertoire of criminal activity once the title has been obtained and getting caught
certainly does not look good either. This particular qurdi was baptised in the late
1990s in Samtredia by two of the older qurdebi in that town following the funeral of
his father who had been a well-known qurdi there. He was baptised without any
convictions (AOCU-K 2004). Two other Georgian qurdebi of the younger generation
were picked up in Moscow in 2007 for similar crimes, one similarly had been
baptised on the basis that he had qurdebi relatives (Criminalnaya 2008).
Thirdly, the qurdebi are well-known for moving away from their original
ascetic existence in the camps and starting to acquire wealth and an extravagant
lifestyle. The qurdebi seem to have been affected by general trends of consumption,
ownership and wealth creation occurring in Georgia and the Soviet Union at large: ‘Iknew a lot of qurdebi in my time, and I asked them: 20 odd years ago you didn’t havethe right to marry, settle down, have property. They say, “that was then, now life isdifferent, look at this or that guy, this minister or that one. They want to live well
don’t you think we want to too?”’ (R21)
There are also accounts of qurdebi beating other qurdebi as punishment for
their lifestyle. A generational gap appears to have opened up in some areas between
qurdebi-traditionalists and new generation qurdebi. According to one example in the279

police data, in the Guria region of western Georgia a conflict emerged along
generational lines. On the one side an old qurdi L. had a protégé by the nickname K.
baptised in 1999. K. subsequently administered a beating to a young qurdi, M., for theun-thievish act of returning stolen arms to the police. Subsequently, M. attempted tohave K. uncrowned though this was not agreed to by older qurdebi living in Russia
who intervened on the side of L. and thus the older generation’s man (AOCU-T
2004).
Part of the attraction of becoming a qurdi by the 1990s was the sheer fact of
becoming rich. This was attested to time and again by respondents. A typical response
to what was so attractive about the qurdebi life was given by the head of the Kutaisi
city police (R31): ‘they were all driving big cars, they had money, people wanted tobe like that. Simple.’ This type of shift in lifestyle is important in changing incentives
for relations within the qurdebi’s trust network, as was discussed in Chapter 9, as it
alters the reliance on generalised reciprocity and normative commitment. As Paoli(2003, 2008) argues, such materialistic changes can shift incentives towards shortterm personal gain of specific goods, such as consumer items, money and property
weakening bonds between Mafiosi.
Whilst this is true of the dynamics internally, the problem highlighted here is
how extravagant displays of wealth, changes in consumption patterns, leisureactivities and so on, affect status. As classically stated by Weber, status amongst
nobility is maintained on the basis of honour, prestige and lifestyle. The same held
true in the past for the qurdebi. By the 1990s however the new qurdebi recruited were
often only attracted to the title precisely to become a wealthy man in a poor country.

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10.5 Protecting High Status: Qurdebi and the Church
Such changes in ‘work performance’ amongst the qurdebi make maintaining astatus distinction as elite criminals difficult. As noted above, punishment of those who
do not perform well is expensive for the punisher so it appears that the qurdebi use acheaper way to try to maintain the status distinction which does not involve
monitoring others’ decadent lifestyle or giving up luxuries oneself. The qurdebi seemto make a conscious effort to offset the decadence of their contemporary lifestyle bytransmuting the old thieves’ traditions and values into support for an institution thathas on the face of it maintained its status distinction through preservation of
asceticism and abstinence: the Georgian Orthodox church.
Honi prison camp is one example.39 Positioned in a wide valley where tea
plantations provided work for the prisoners, the camp is in terrible condition. The
exception to this is a small, beautifully built brick church in the middle of thegrounds. The interior is suitably simple with all the adornments of a usual Georgian
church. Respectfully lowering one’s head however reveals an eight-point black andwhite star in the middle of the floor. This is the qurdebi trademark. Honi had been a‘black’ prison up to 2004 (R24).
A walk around the city of Kutaisi shows more examples. One qurdi, by thenickname of T. has built his house in the Gora region overlooking the town next to the11th century cathedral of Bagrati, though residents now complain that it obstructs theview of the ancient site in contravention of local law stretching back a millennium.
Meanwhile, near the railway station the qurdi P. turned classical style Stalinist blocksof flats into living quarters for various qurdebi and their families. Some 150 metres up

39

I am grateful to Penal Reform International and the prison administration for enabling me to visit theprison in Honi.

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the road on the banks of the river Rioni a new church has been built using money
provided by those families (R29). Across the bridge from there, the qurdi Z. built ahuge new house complete with English oak doors, a layout to resemble the qurdebi
eight-point star from above and a top floor room for holding skhodki that, according
to the police, was designed to emit smoke when baptising new qurdebi in imitation of
the Vatican (R29).
Near Kutaisi, a qurdi called A. dominated the village of Terjola living in the
one house that was over two-stories tall. However, a prosecutor (R30) reports that: ‘hebuilt a church in Terdjola and a church gives people something, it feels like a
blessing. I guess they [the qurdebi] want to buy off their sin…when I was talking to
A. in jail…he was talking about the good he did for people.’ Similarly, west of
Kutaisi, the qurdi Kh. controlled the small town of Tsalenjikha and gave his house, ahuge mansion complete with swimming pool and helipad, to the church. He moved toBarcelona in Spain before the state confiscated his property from a surprised priest in2006 (Gerzmava 2007).
It might be that some qurdebi are just relatively rich men who also happen to
be very religious. Certainly, however, it can also be said that support for the church
does no harm to their reputation in a society that sees its church as the highest
expression of the nation. It also maintains the comparison between the ascetism of thechurch and the qurdebi and thereby helps to maintain a symbolic status distinction.

10.6 A Decline in Societal Support?

A common opinion in informal conversations about the qurdebi was that they
were no longer kanoneri qurdebi in fact, but had become a ‘mafia’. This distinction282was quite curious. The common opinion appears to refer to the perceived shift fromthe honest, self-denying qurdebi of old to a ‘mafia’ where this refers to violent
racketeers lacking in human values and only in it for the money. The opinion refers to
the change in the qurdebi’s lifestyle. As such this opinion is surely indicative of ablurring of the status distinction upon which the qurdebi based their individual
reputations so effectively in operating within Georgian society.
Certainly respondents highlighted the changes in the qurdebi’s lifestyleusually with overtones of lament at the loss of a more honest age when the qurdebi
were genuinely reliable men. Referring to the qurdebi’s other name, ramkiani, ‘in theframe’, as in a framework of rules for living, one respondent (R21) said that in the
past: ‘they just lived by the prisoners’ rules - ‘in the frame’ - but then they climbed
out of the frame, you get it? They should have clearly defined actions, once one ofthem goes outside the frame, it used to be, he’s already not a qurdi. But the last few
years, they came out of the frame.’ Another respondent (R10), referring to therecruitment of substandard members as qurdebi, summed up the problem for thequrdebi by drawing an analogy with football: ‘Yeah, it was a problem. Imagine
Manchester United signing some shit player….and then you see he can’t play, maybe
he can kick the ball but that’s all he can do! You know, they may want to bringsomeone in but if they see he can’t do anything they just stop the process….because if
you make someone a qurdi and then he can’t work properly then it will be you who
has problems.’ This opinion refers to changes in recruitment as detrimental to theoverall brand name of the qurdebi and the status distinction of this name. There havebeen reports that qurdebi began to lose face amongst prisoners, having fun poked atthat them and even physically challenged and slapped, a massive insult to a qurdi
(R6).

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Attitudes to the qurdebi were also taken in a national voter survey of 1,500
people over the age of 18 conducted twice a year by Gallup Corporation and USAID
for the International Republican Institute (IRI) in Georgia, a democracy-promoting
US think-tank, between 2003 and 2007. Under ‘confidence in institutions’ attitudes tothe qurdebi were recorded as ‘favourable’ ‘unfavourable’ or ‘no opinion’ alongside
attitudes to more formal institutions such as political parties, the president and thechurch. In terms of favourable attitudes the qurdebi, or “mafia network of ‘thieves-inlaw’” as they are described in the survey results, come bottom of the pile in eachsurvey with the exception of trade unions which also seem to be heavily disliked in
Georgia. The church consistently tops all institutions with a favourability rating
hovering around 90%. This lends further weight to the argument that the qurdebi,
Georgia’s least favourite ‘institution’, might want to associate themselves with thechurch’s almost perfect infallibility in the eyes of the Georgian people.
Interestingly, whilst the qurdebi decreased in popularity in the period 20042007 the police inverted this trend gaining in popularity from 49% in June 2004 toaround 70% favourability by 2007. The relationship between the qurdebi and thepolice is dealt with elsewhere (Chapter 6); suffice to say here that a lack of trust in thepolice naturally advantages the qurdebi in the area of dispute resolution.
The qurdebi were included in the survey from June 2004, I will present theresults and then make some basic comparisons with other time periods. Below I
present the results of surveys carried out in the following months: June and October
2004, June and October 2005, April 2006, June and September 2007.

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Attitudes to the Qurdebi 2004-2007
80
70
60
50

Favourable
Unfavourable
No opinion

40
30
20
10
Sep-07

Jun-07Mar-07

Dec-06

Sep-06

Jun-06Mar-06

Dec-05

Sep-05

Jun-05Mar-05

Dec-04

Sep-04

Jun-040TimeGraph 10.1: to show attitudes to the qurdebi 2004-2007

Source: IRI

The qurdebi then, during this period at least, were not looked on particularly
kindly by the respondents, the peak in favourability of 17% in June 2005 is an
exception in an otherwise downward trend that bottoms out in the final survey with
7% favourability in September 2007. A much more pronounced change occurs
however in the difference across time between those with no opinion and thoseviewing the qurdebi unfavourably; the trend for each is almost diametrically opposedfrom October 2005 onwards. In October 2005, those with ‘no opinion’ of the qurdebi
and those that look on them unfavourably stood at almost exactly the same proportion(43% versus 42% respectively). By April 2006 a pronounced split between the
respondents had appeared (61% unfavourable versus 27% with no opinion), this split
grows steadily wider over time standing at 70% versus 23% by September 2007.

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It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the decline in those with no opinion
and the increase of those unfavourable to the qurdebi has something to do with thecampaign against the qurdebi. After all, the new legislation targeting them wasintroduced in December 2005 right when this surge in unfavourability to the qurdebi
occurs in these surveys. One explanation for this relationship may be a fear of thestate and being associated with the qurdebi as this had just been made into a newcrime. On the other hand, it could be, simply, that the power of the state attacks on thequrdebi through public announcements and use of the media were having an effect.
The state attack with its subsequent arrests and high profile court cases was generally
supported as increases in support for the police shows.
A third interpretation however could be that the state attack pushed those who
previously would not speak about the qurdebi for fear of them, to express themselvesmore forcefully once they saw the state had gained the upper hand in the fight onorganised crime. A lack of societal opposition to the qurdebi was due to a fear thatthey were somehow untouchable and that speaking out was dangerous. The
importance of this for the argument here is that, if true, the sudden shift away fromhaving no opinion to assessing the qurdebi unfavourably shows that the societal
support for these criminals was not based so much on shared values in the anomic
conditions of post-soviet society, as Oleinik (2003) for example suggests, or on a deep
respect for the thievish lifestyle and a compatibility between Georgian values and thenorms of the thieves’ world as is often argued (Nordin & Glonti 2006) but somethingmuch shallower than that.
For example, the arrest of the qurdi A., who we met above as a major
benefactor of the Georgian church, in January 2004 in the village of Terjola near
Kutaisi, brought 150 people out literally onto the street. Protesting the arrest, A.’s

286

supporters blocked the main Tbilisi-Zugdidi highway and clashed with police (ITARTASS 2004). On the one hand, this might be seen as a manifestation of deep-seatedsupport for the qurdebi and strong anti-statist feelings. However, according to the
local police: ‘you know, people respected him, and for sure he was helping people inthe village, no doubt he gave them money if they needed, but then there werebusinessmen and they were scared of him, he was involved in their business and they
thought if they didn’t show their support there could be trouble’ (R29). This casesuggests that, though there was societal support for this specific qurdi due to thebenefits that could be gained from this, protest was also based on fear of theconsequences if one was not seen to help out in the tight-knit context of the Georgianvillage.
This is not to say that there was not some genuine normative belief in thequrdebi as a socially beneficial phenomenon for Georgia and that those beliefs do notstill exist to this day; it is clear that they do. As one respondent (R17) said,‘personally, I can tell you, a relative of mine was killed, a young man, 18, killed oversome argument, and his father blamed Saakashvili for the death. You know why?
Because that month they had arrested the local qurdi in that area and he directly
linked his son’s death to this….before Saakashvili, in the 1990s qurdebi wereeverywhere.’ However, despite this, it seems that often positive attitudes were notbased on a logic of appropriateness with regards to the qurdebi’s norms, but rather alogic of instrumentality over what could be gained from supporting them or lost from
opposing them and that this latter logic could thus quite quickly unravel the apparent
status distinction of the qurdebi once the state had successfully attacked organised
crime in 2005.

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10.7 Conclusion

One Georgian academic (Kukhianidze 2008, p. 230) writes, ‘in the 1990s,
many young people dreamed of becoming a “thief-in-law”, which was associated withpower, influence and wealth. At present, the young generation understands that being
a “thief-in-law” means spending the rest of your life in prison. In short, the reputationof Georgian “thieves-in-law” as well as other influential criminals has been seriously
undermined.’ It would be worthwhile adding here that not just the deterrence of a
prison sentence has undermined the reputation of the qurdebi. The fact that being a
qurdi ‘was associated with power, influence and wealth,’ had become a factor in the
decline in more general support for these criminals who had previously stood out asself-denying ascetics. While a lot of ‘support’ for the qurdebi may have been based on
considerations of monetary gain, or fear of punishment, there was still the fact thatthey advertised themselves and got a reputation for being fair, honest and just.
Combined with the distinctive lifestyle of apparent non-collaboration with the state,anti-materialism, unique argot, and tattoos, the qurdebi were regarded as a criminal
status group in Georgia. However, the tendency to turn the qurdi into ‘a legendary
type’ could only be justified while they did in fact maintain the lifestyle thatcomprised the symbolic boundary that enabled the beliefs about their status to hold insociety.
I have argued that the major problem in achieving this was upholding the lawof conformity whereby all those who are qurdebi signal their identity in the sameway. The changes in recruitment led to a younger age, less experience and increasing
numbers of new recruits making the job of maintaining the law of conformity even288more difficult. Instead, many qurdebi used their titles for self-enrichment, got
married, bought property, and did not go in for tattooing as much as in the past.
The consequence appears to be a negative effect on the collective signalling ofan elite identity on a group level that depends upon the receivers of such signalling
believing that all those in that group maintain certain valuable qualities. The issue ofcourse is that by undermining the basis of the status beliefs about the qurdebi and byflaunting their own rules, the newer qurdebi undermine the value of the brand namethey have spent time buying into. It seems very plausible that the motive for many
criminals in acquiring the title was simply to use it as a well-known franchise thatthey could profit from without doing much for. In any business, cashing in on themarket value of a brand name without fully reinvesting in it is a highly short-term
strategy.
As some of the opinions expressed above suggest, reputation amongst thequrdebi may have been negatively affected to the point where the qurdebi as a statusgroup within the criminal world fail to maintain their distinction and are regarded as
any other set of criminals. In such circumstances the causal arrow flips and reputation
begins to affect recruitment. The supply of people dries up, as the exclusivity of thestatus is lost. This is fatal for any criminal group signifying a devastating loss ofresilience. It is possible that the qurdebi in Georgia face such a scenario. As one
respondent (R1) said of a close relative who had the criminal credentials to ‘look to
the future’: ‘the qurdebi wanted him to [become a qurdi]. They recognised his
authority, but he didn’t want to himself. He felt he didn’t need the title. And he didn’t
really respect those guys, they don’t live correctly anymore.’289

11. In Conclusion: the Qurdebi on Trial'Why aren't you working, wolf?''The law doesn't allow it.''And eating, does your law allow that?''There is no law that says I should go hungry.''Your law has seen better days. All the zakonniki [thieves-in-law] split with it a longtime ago.'

Conversation between the thief-in-law Kuptsov and the camp guard Pakhapil' inSergei Dovlatov's Zona (1982, pg. 69)

In July 2010, a Moscow court sentenced the widely recognised boss of the
Kutaisskaya faction of the Georgian kanonieri qurdebi, Tariel Oniani, to 10 years inprison for kidnapping and extortion (Galeotti 2010). His other Georgian associates
had been targeted and assassinated around Europe by the rival Tbilisskaya faction
belonging to Aslan Usoyan. In Oniani’s hometown of Kutaisi in western Georgia,
meanwhile, only one qurdi remains free to walk the streets, and then only due toreasons of old age and ill health. Yet, only seven years previous Oniani had beenrunning a large money-laundering operation in Spain and had been treated like astatesman by the Georgian government, met by Interior Ministry officials at Tbilisi
airport and provided with protective convoys.
The previous chapters should help explain many aspects of Oniani’s plight:
the factionalism, conflict, transplantation, and loss of influence. Oniani’s predicament290

is indicative of the fate of many kanonieri qurdebi, at least in Georgia. This criminal
community, which I have defined as a trust network, has adapted and survived
through many upheavals and social and political transformations and maintained astrong social influence in Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
However, the anti-mafia policies adopted after the Rose Revolution of 2003 appear to
put the survival of this trust network into question. The qurdebi in this case have notbeen able to resist or adapt.
There is one straightforward explanation for this: the state policy was wellinformed, quick, and as targeted against the qurdebi as it was wide-ranging in evoking
a more general ‘culture of lawfulness’ for society. Furthermore, the extraordinary
powers given to opaque and not fully reformed power ministries allowed alleged
abuses that made the blow struck against organised crime even harder. In the presentday, August 2010, people continue to be arrested as ‘members of the thieves’ world,’
sometimes on flimsy or dubious pretexts (Interpress 2010).
This state and policy based explanation is not fully satisfying however. Firstly,
the new Georgian government in 2004, despite the reforms, remained weak in relative
terms and the tasks ahead of them large, particularly in terms of increasing the budget
and state capacity. Secondly, other cases of countries implementing anti-mafia ororganised crime policies in the presence of well-developed organised criminal
communities faced strong resistance to these policies. The classic case of this is Italyin 1992, however other examples come from terrorist and paramilitary resistance todisbandment or criminalisation of certain activities.
Therefore, this study has paid particular attention to understanding the
dynamics of the criminal world in Georgia to explain how and why the kanonieri
qurdebi had low levels of resilience to state attack once it came in 2005. Four main

291

components of the dependent variable were identified: sustenance, external relations,internal relations, and boundaries. The study attempted to describe changes in these
and, where possible, explain such changes. It was found that, since the collapse ofcommunism, the qurdebi had increased their flow of resources (sustenance); loweredbarriers to entry and exit, and blurred their criminal status distinction (boundaries);
decreased the equality of ties within the network, formed centralised factions andreduced the reliance on commitment as an incentive for membership in favour ofcapital gain (internal relations); and adapted to changes in the political regime throughvarious clientelist strategies (external relations).
From these observations, the analysis allows some tentative general
conclusions to be drawn about the resilience of the kanonieri qurdebi:

1)

External relations are key to reducing vulnerability to predation by
the state. Multiple connections with a range of political actors
protects against the effects of exogenous political change. However,a change in regime to a hostile, unified political party machine thatenacts conformity across regional and political levels creates great
exposure to attack.

2)

Increased supply of resources from a range of sources has variable
effects on resilience. It enables expansion and the resources to adapt
to exogenous change however an orientation towards enrichment
lowers incentives based purely on commitment in favour of capitalwhich in turn can have negative effects on the exclusivity andprestige of membership of a trust network. Furthermore, greater292

possibilities for wealth generation increases the opportunity costs on
regulating other aspects of the network.
3)

Lowering of boundaries, i.e. barriers to entry and exit, positively
affects resilience in the short term in the presence of conflict andcompetition. However, in the long term lowering boundaries
negatively affects resilience. Firstly, increasing membership size
complicates coordination and exerts a pressure towards factionalism
and thus conflict. Secondly, recruitment of substandard members
negatively affects group reputation which can affect the exclusivity
and desirability of membership in the long run.

4)

Factionalism, lowering equality of ties, and centralisation has
variable effects on resilience. It allows greater efficiency incoordination and governance and overcoming monitoring andcollective action problems utilising authoritative forms of commandand dispute resolution. However, it can potentially generate conflict
between influential and charismatic personalities and hinder wider
responses to exogenous threats that threaten the whole trust
network.

The study does not claim that where variation occurs in these elements it isnecessarily the product of purposive, well thought out policy within the thieves’world. Instead, the data appear to agree with the organisational change literature (seechapter 2) that suggests there are many confounding variables for understanding fully
why and when organisations change or do not change. Thus, as the elements ofresilience indicated above vary this may or may not be according to any rational

293

strategy to increase resilience. Though a decrease in resilience is not desirable, it cancome about through unintended consequences in uncertain and quickly changing
environments.
Given that these conditions hold for Georgia following the collapse of theSoviet Union, it is difficult to make clear inferences about causal factors driving
variation. While the study attempted to identify underlying causes for the changes inresilience, causal effects could not be measured precisely nor could all possible
intervening variables be controlled for, however, certain factors did stand out andpresented strong logical cases for producing causal effects. It is clear that one of these
exogenous factors became particularly prominent in the analysis as bringing aboutchange amongst the Georgian kanonieri qurdebi: levels of competition in theenvironment following the collapse of communism. This emerged as a factor in many
areas. Levels of competition help to explain why the 1990s, though a time ofabundant resources for a mafia with unbridled and unprotected capitalist activity, also
proved to be perhaps one of the most turbulent and damaging decades for the qurdebi
in their long history.
As well as pulling the qurdebi further away from their anti-materialist norms
and increasing opportunity costs in investing in regulating the qurdebi network, thegrowth in available resources brought about violent competition from other armed
groups, paramilitaries, and corrupt state agencies. This competition proved a catalyst
for altering the structure and barriers to entry of the qurdebi. Furthermore,competition operates as a causal factor logically prior to any others identified in the
study. For example, increased agency costs were discussed as another potential
driving factor in explaining change. However, these increased costs were brought
about by many influential qurdebi leaving Georgia, yet this was done often because of294

the unprofitable balance of dangers and profits in the country due to conflict overresources.

11.1 Previous and Future Research
The observations and conclusions made in this study give support to theobservations of a variety of scholars concerning the kanonieri qurdebi prior to theRose Revolution. Firstly, Finkenauer & Waring wrote in 1998, (p. 108): ‘it is ourimpression that the vory [thieves-in-law] who were once active in Tbilisi have moved
to Moscow. For several reasons some of those who are left have bought the title, mostare very young (only 20 or slightly older) and many have not paid their dues by going
to prison (sometimes because they bought their way out) – we have concluded that thevory traditions are breaking down in Georgia.’ Many of the aspects of Finkenauer &Waring’s impression have been borne out by this study. Secondly, Derluguian (1999)
commented that the thieves-in-law ‘is not a centralised organisation, nor even anorder. It is an institutional design embedded in local culture and is best suited tosurvival in highly repressive, large states like Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union.’
This suggests that outside such an oppressive regime survival has become difficult
and the central tenets of the thieves’ code redundant. Serio, (2008 pp. 168-174) argues
along similar lines: ‘the confusion and ambiguity that gripped society as the Soviet
Union disappeared also impacted the thieves’ world. Suddenly, a vor’s decade inprison didn’t count for much on the outside world’ (p.171). Now disputes could besettled with guns rather than thieves-in-law. Varese (2001) makes a similar
observation in suggesting that increased violence in the 1990s made the position ofthieves-in-law precarious and suggests their decline.

295

The overall findings of this study are not at odds with such positions andcompliment and expand upon them. It is clear that the qurdebi, in Georgia at least,
struggled to adapt. Where adaptations, such as restructuring and allowing greater
membership, did occur these could have adverse consequences for resilience. All thisis to suggest that the thieves’ world in Georgia is in a fight to maintain a clear,recognisable existence.
However, such conclusions can only be reached tentatively and are open to
discussion. As accurate measures of causal effects cannot be given for the various
relationships between phenomena that have been identified, qualifications have been
made concerning many of the arguments. These mainly concern keeping inferences
within what is justified by the data. The project as it stands would benefit from further
data collection and research. However, as stated at the outset, part of the goal of thisresearch was to identify relationships between phenomena, suggest causes, develop
theory and put forward hypotheses. That some of the conclusions reached aretentative is not a flaw, but an invitation for future research.
Furthermore, it is clear that the arguments and conclusions here are not easily
generalisable to a wider population of cases. However, some of the principles andrelationships at work may be utilised for the purposes of comparison in similar cases.
A potential future research strategy would be to identify a similar case study with adifferent result: i.e. a strong state crackdown that was resisted by a trust network. For
example, in the case of resistance to the Italian Anti-Mafia Commission of 1992 it
might be hypothesised that the Sicilian mafia were resilient and resistant to state
attack. Identifying the strength and diversity of supply sources, the degree of retentionof high barriers to entry, commitment mechanisms, equality amongst mob leaders,
and the level of fractiousness of the state machine would help to address this question.

296

Setting up such comparative case studies would allow a deeper understanding of
which factors are the most crucial in understanding levels of resistance and success incrackdowns on dangerous and predatory trust networks. Such a research agenda could
be applied widely and particularly in the areas of terrorism and insurgency whichtakes up so much policy and public interest in the present day.
Finally, in terms of Georgia and the post-Soviet space more generally, there
are many studies, both academic and non-academic, of organised crime and mafias
these days. In these countries, the stream of books, films, serials, and even clothinglines that allude to the criminal subculture of thieves-in-law shows the hold it still has
over popular consciousness. I believe that this study makes a novel and important
contribution to understanding the dynamics of resilience of organised crime,
something which has become a permanent feature of many post-Soviet countries
today. This study has not referred back to anything particularly ‘Georgian’ inexplaining aspects of the kanonieri qurdebi other than some of the symbolic featuresand forms of the trust network. In not doing so, this study indirectly makes the casethat a long history of outlaws and alienation from the state does not lead to theinevitability of organised crime and mafia-rule in Georgia. If this study makes even atiny contribution to building a law-governed, stable future for this fascinating country
then it will have been worth it.

297

298

Glossary of Terms

Georgian

Russianapel’sin, lavrushnnik

apel’sin, lavrushnnik

avtoriteti

avtoritetbespredel’bespredel’birzhabirzhabozebisuki

dzmaobabratvagagebaponyatiya

ganapibez pyati minut

garchevarazborka

EnglishAn ‘orange’ or a ‘laurelleaf.’ A thief-in-law who
has gained the title throughcorruption, by buying
recommendations frommade men to be baptised.
A high ranking criminal,
sometimes equal to a thiefin-law.
A situation of chaos.
Originally referred to a
prison cell with no dispute
arbitrator, it came to be aword to characterise postSoviet society. Thieves-inlaw were originally seen as
preventing bespredel’ inprison and later also insociety.
Literally a trading place. In
Georgia the birzha is astreet hangout for young
people. Originally separate
from the thieves’ world, inthe 1990s these hangouts
became common areas ofthievish influence.
‘Bitches’ - those who
originally moved awayfrom the thieves’ code.
‘Brotherhood’, a term usedin the post-Soviet period
for a small group of
racketeers, that a thief-inlaw might control.
The thieves’‘understandings’, theircode of honour.
A person who will be
initiated as a thief-in-law
in the very near future.
The practice of dispute299

hariphimuzhikkai bichi

horoshlak

kanonieri qurdi, ramkiani
qurdi
kryshavor-v-zakone, zakonnik
kryshakuchis skola-

makarubelismotryashchii

malyava (progon)

malyava (progon)

momevali-natvlakoronovanie

obshchakiobshchakqurduli samkarovorovskoi mir

skhodniaki

skhodkaresolution.
Someone who works forthe prison regime and istherefore outside thethieves’ understandings
and may be exploited.
A ‘goodfella’. Someone
who follows the thieves’rules or understandings.
Thief-in-law, the highest
rank in the criminal worldA ‘roof’, protection by acriminal, a racket.
The school of the street –the informal rules of street
life that in principle isseparate from the thieves’world but may feed into it.
The ‘overseer.’ The
representative of a thief-inlaw in prison or in a given
territory. May collect andkeep the obshchak.
The dissemination of
information amongst thethieves’ community.
Someone ‘looking to the
future.’ A person who hasgiven a commitment tolive the thieves’ life andattempt to become a thiefin-law.
‘Baptism’ or ‘crowning’.
The process of initiation to
the thieves’ rank.
The communal fund formutual aid to be used forthe benefit of those thieves
who need it for goodreasons, such as ill healthor difficulties in prison.
The ‘thieves’ world’. The
totality of status ranks,
practices, rules andbehavioural norms adhered
to by those who profess tothat way of life.
The thieves’ ‘courts’ ormeetings where issues are
discussed, disputes settled
300

tavi

dol’yaand recruits initiated.
A cut or share of profit
taken for providing theservice of protection or
dispute resolution.

301

Appendix: Images

Picture A: Confiscation of Qurdebi Property and the Symbolism of Law and Order.
Former house of a qurdi in Telavi, a town in eastern Georgia. As part of a deliberate
policy it was confiscated and now houses a police station. One of the new cars of thePatrol Police is on display in the foreground. (Gavin Slade, 2008).

302

Picture B: Anti-Mafia in Kutaisi.
Former house of a qurdi in Kutaisi. This was confiscated and taken over by the police
in 2007. The odd architectural design portrays the qurdebi eight-point star when seenfrom the top floors of the block of flats, visible in the top left of the picture. According
to local police, the top-level room of the house was for holding skhodki and had achimney intended to emit smoke when new members were successfully initiated.
(Gavin Slade 2009).

303

Picture C: Commitment or Capital? The New Thieves’ Code of Wealth and Power
Palatial residence of one of Georgia’s most well-connected qurdebi in the hills above
Tbilisi. This has been taken over by the financial police since the Rose Revolution.
The qurdi in question is currently standing trial in Spain for money laundering.
(Gavin Slade, 2009).

304

Picture D: The Way Things Were.
Examples of collective meetings (skhodki) in prison before the Rose Revolution. The
corruption of the prison administration was widespread and qurdebi virtually ran socalled ‘black prisons.’ Qurdebi from outside the prisons (clearly distinct by their hatsand outdoor clothing, above) were able to enter the prisons to conduct skhodki with
their colleagues on the inside (those in athletic clothing, above). (Photo courtesy of
AOCU-T).

305

Picture E: Factions & Conflict I
Skhodka of qurdebi from the Imereti region at the 12th century church and monasterycomplex Gelati, in the hills above Kutaisi. The qurdebi based in Kutaisi and its
environs began to centre around Tariel Oniani (not pictured) and became known in
Russia as the Kutaisskaya. The Kutaisskaya have been in conflict with the Tbilisi
faction of qurdebi known as the Tbilisskaya and have come out of this conflict badly.
Oniani is now in jail and some of their members have been assassinated. (Photopublished by PrimeCrime.ru).

306

Picture F: Factions & Conflict II.
The picture shows a skhodka of the group close to Aslan Usoyan, known as Ded
Hasan (centre, blue shirt). They hail mainly from Tbilisi and its environs (particularly
Rustavi) and have become known in Russia as the Tbilisskaya. Since 2005 there has
been friction with the Kutaisi-based faction known as the Kutaisskaya. Although
Usoyan appeared to have the upper hand in this conflict, in November 2010 henarrowly survived an assassination attempt in central Moscow. (Photo courtesy of
AOCU-T).

307

Picture G: Factions & Conflict III.
The funeral of the legendary Russian mobster Vychaslav Ivan’kov, known as
Yaponchik, in October 2009. Ivan’kov was assassinated in Moscow after attempting
to mediate in the dispute between the Kutaisi and Tbilisi factions. (Photo published byPrimeCrime.ru).

308

Picture H: Maintaining Distinction: Qurdebi Trademarks.
Elaborate tattooing is still a feature of the qurdebi in the present day. Religious
symbolism is popular (top) and the qurdebi trademark, the eight-point star on the twoshoulders, is a condition of membership and a highly exclusive label (bottom). (Photo
courtesy of AOCU-T).

309

Picture I: Maintaining Distinction: Qurdebi and the Church
According to the local police, this new church was built on the banks of the River
Rioni in Kutaisi with money from prominent qurdebi. (Gavin Slade, 2009).

310

Picture J: The Qurdebi on Trial
Large poster in downtown Tbilisi on the sixth anniversary of the Rose Revolution,
November 2009. The poster shows Tariel Oniani, leader of the Kutaisskaya, behindbars (though he was actually arrested in Russia). Surrounding him are photographsof other kanonieri qurdebi with their faces blurred out. The poster reads: ‘The Rose
Revolution: Promises Delivered. A Georgia without Kanonieri Qurdebi.’ At thebottom somebody has clearly attempted to burn the poster off the wall, perhaps
revealing again that societal support for the qurdebi has not been completely
extinguished. (Gavin Slade, 2009).

311

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Criminalnaya, 2008d. Podarki ot Deda Hasana ko dnyu militsii. V Moskve‘koronovano’ srazu 10 vorov v zakone. Available at:
http://criminalnaya.ru/news/2008-11-10-7757 [Accessed August 19, 2010].
Criminalnaya, 2010. Prokuror poprosil dlya Tariela Oniani 15 let. Available at:
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o/2010-07-04-15849 [Accessed July 8, 2010].
Day, 2007. Ministr vnutrennikh del Gruzii Vano Merabishvili: 'V Gruzii nikogda nebudet 'vorov v zakone.' Available at:
http://www.day.az/news/georgia/95959.html [Accessed August 10, 2010].
The Georgian Times, 2008. The members of the thieves' world have been detained.
Available at: http://www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsid=14354[Accessed August 11, 2010].
The Guardian, 2010. US Embassy Cables: Russia is a virtual ‘mafia state’ says
Spanish Investigator. Available at: www.guardian.co.uk /world/us-embassy-329

cables-documents/247712 [Accessed January 11, 2011].
ITAR-TASS, 2004. Okolo 150 chelovek perekrili avtotrassu Tbilisi-Zugdidi nedaleko
ot Kutaisi. Available at:
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2010]
Interpress, 2004. Vitse-Mer Kutaisi schitaet akitsiu voditelei upravlyaemoi
kriminalami. Available at: http://primecrime.ru/news/2004-08-08_2291[Accessed August 17, 2010].
Interpress, 2010. Law-Enforcers Detain Footballer Giorgi Demetradze Available at:
http://new.interpressnews.ge/en/justice/19030-law-enforcers-detain-footballergiorgi-demetradze.html [Accessed August 11, 2010].
Kompromat, 1999. Gruzinskaya OPG Available at:
http://www.compromat.ru/main/mafiamsk/gruziny.htm [Accessed August 17,
2010].
Kommersant, 2009. Vor v zagone Available at: http://www.kommersant.ru/docy.aspx?DocsID=1243661 [Accessed August 9, 2010].
Komsomol'skaya Pravda, 2001. Podvin'sya bratok. Gruppirovki kotorye nas
kontroliruyut. Available at: http://compromat.ru/page_9685.htm [Accessed
August 17, 2010].
Lenta, 2006. V Gruzii poimali vsekh ‘vorov v zakone’. Available at:
http://lenta.ru/news/2006/04/11/eliminate/ [Accessed August 11, 2010].
Lenta, 2007. Prestupnost': V Zapadnoi Gruzii zaderzhali 18 'vorov v zakone'.
Available at: http://lenta.ru/news/2007/10/25/kutaisi/ [Accessed August 11,
2010].
Lenta, 2009. Prestupnost’: V Moskve sostoyalis' pokhorony Yaponchika. Available
at: http://www.lenta.ru/news/2009/10/13/bury/ [Accessed August 17, 2010].
The Messenger, 2009. “Meeting Place-Ukraine”. Available at:
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html [Accessed August 11, 2010].
News.rin, 2005. Zaklyuchennye neskol'ko gruzinskikh tyurem ob''yavili golodovku
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News.ru, 2010. Rossiya priyutila gruzinskikh 'vorov v zakone', sbezhavshikh ot'repressii' na rodine. Available at:
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August 17, 2010].
Novosti Gruzii, 2004. Glava MVD Gruzii: sotrudniki politisii zaderzhali 'general'nogo
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2010].
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Available at: www.primecrime.ru.
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332

Expert Interviews

Respondent
R1
R2
R3
R4
R5
R6
R7
R8
R9
R10
R11
R12
R13
R14
R15
R16
R17
R18
R19
R20
R21
R22
R23
R24
R25
R26
R27
R28
R29
R30
R31
R32
R33
R34
R35
R36
R37
R38
R39
R40
R41
R42
R43
R44

Position
Unemployed; connections with criminal 'authorities'
Former criminal investigator
Prison reform programme advisor, MoJ
Prosecutor
Academic; Police Academy Trainer
Academic; Director of crime-related NGO
Spokesman for MIA
Academic; NGO activist for 'culture of lawfulness' program.
Head of AOCU in SOD, MIA
Chief Criminal Investigator AOCU in SOD, MIA
Former police officer
Assistant Director Criminal Police, MIA
Head of Central Administration, PO
Director Safe Schools Project, MoE
Academic; Former police officer and parliamentarian
Journalist; Former bodyguard
Professor of Law
Unemployed; connections with criminal 'authorities'
Defence lawyer; former Kutaisi prosecutor
Worker for NGO on penal reform; former prison worker
Former prison governor
Police officer
Academic
Prison governor
Former head of administration of prison nr Kutaisi
Prison governor
Prison governor
Prison governor
Head of Kutaisi AOCU in SOD, MIA
Head of Kutaisi PO
Head of Kutaisi City Criminal Police
Criminal Investigator
Former judge
Deputy head teacher
Head teacher
Imereti regional governor
Head teacher
Lawyer in legal assistance NGO
Prominent journalist
Defence lawyer; former political prisoner
Former president
Advisor to head of prison department
Ombudsman
Former prosecutor drafted anti-mafia legislation

Place
Tbilisi
KutaisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisi
ZugdidiKutaisi
Honi
KutaisiGeguti
Kutaisi
ZugdidiKutaisi
Kutaisi
Kutaisi
Kutaisi
Kutaisi
Kutaisi
Kutaisi
Kutaisi
Kutaisi
KutaisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiTbilisiDate
09.05.08
21.05.08
24.05.08
25.05.08
27.05.08
30.05.08
31.05.08
03.06.08
04.06.08
04.06.08
04.06.08
05.06.08
05.06.08
10.06.08
11.06.08
11.03.09
19.03.09
26.03.09
07.04.09
08.04.09
14.04.09
20.04.09
04.05.09
27.04.09
27.04.09
28.04.09
28.04.09
29.04.09
30.04.09
01.05.09
01.05.09
01.05.09
03.05.09
04.05.09
05.05.09
06.05.09
07.05.09
07.05.09
20.05.09
28.05.09
01.06.09
02.06.09
04.06.09
05.06.09333

Abbreviations:
MoJ = Ministry of Justice;
MoE = Ministry of Education;
AOCU = Anti-Organised Crime Unit;
SOD = Special Operations Department;
MIA = Ministry of Internal Affairs;
PO = Prosecutor’s Office;
NGO = Non-governmental organisation.

Archival Sources
Presidential Archive (F=Fond; O=Opis; D=Delo):
F. 14 O. 144 D. 453: Central Commitee of the Communist Party of Georgia, 1969.
Spravka o sostoyanii i merakh bor’by s prestupnost’yu v Gruzinskoi SSR za
1968 god i p-oe polugodie 1969g. O prodelannoi rabote sledstvennykh
apparatom MVD GSSR o rassledovanii ugolovnodo dela po obvineniyu
gruppy byvshikh rabotnikov Tbilisskoi trikotazhnoi fabriki no. 4., Tbilisi.
F. 14 O. 117 D. 331: Central Commitee of the Communist Party of Georgia, 1978.
Informatsii sekretarya TsK v TsK KPSS o resultatakh borb’y s prestupnost’yu
v 1978 godu, o razoblachenii grupp prestupnikov, zanimayushchikhsya
khishchenyami gosudarstvennogo imushchestva v osobo krupnikh rasmerakho prodelannoi rabote po iskoreneniyu negativnikh yavlenii.
F. 14 O. 123 D. 360: Central Commitee of the Communist Party of Georgia, 1981. O
sostoyanii raboti organov vnutrennikh del respubliki po bor’be s krazhami v
svete postanovleniya buro TsK KP Gruzii ot 13 Maya 1980 goda “O khodevipolneniya postanovleniya TsK KP Gruzii ot 14.08.73g. “O merakh pousileniyu bor’by s krazhami v Gruzinskoi SSR"
F. 14 O. 125 D. 348: Central Commitee of the Communist Party of Georgia, 1984.
Materiali Republikanskogo Soveshchanii po podvedeniyu itogov bor’by sprestupnost’yu za pervoe polugodie 1984 goda.
F. 19. O. 127 D. 329: Central Commitee of the Communist Party of Georgia, 1986.
Spravka o prodelannoi rabote organami vnutrennikh del po bor’be so
spekulyatsei v respublike za 1985.
334

F. 14. O. 127. D. 330: Central Commitee of the Communist Party of Georgia, 1986.
Materialy po podvedeniyu itogov bor’by s prestupnost’yu za I kvartal 1986 g.
15 aprelya 1986 g.
F. 14 O. 128 D. 143: Central Commitee of the Communist Party of Georgia, 1987.
Protokol No. 76 i prilozheniya k protokolu zasedaniya buro TsK KP Gruzii.

Ministry of Interior Archive (unordered):
Ministry of Interior of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, 1982. Prikaz
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Court Cases and Indictments
Kutaisi City Court, 2008. 1-1252-07.
Tbilisi City Court, 2006a. 1-1906-06.
Tbilisi City Court, 2006b. 1-1982-06.
Tbilisi City Court, 2006c. 1-4567-06.
Tbilisi City Court, 2006d. 1-5482-06.
Tbilisi City Court, 2007. 1-2411-06.
Prosecution Service of Georgia, 2005. Indictment: 051695.
Prosecution Service of Georgia, 2006a. Indictment: 073060366.
Prosecution Service of Georgia, 2006b. Indictment: 09060040.
Prosecution Service of Georgia, 2006c. Indictment: 90060064.

335

Official Documents & Reports
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Anti-Organised Crime Unit, Special Operations Department, Tbilisi, 2008. List of
Kanonieri Qurdebi.

Anti-Organised Crime Unit, Special Operations Department, Tbilisi, 2009. Qurdebi
Deaths 1988-2009.

Anti-Organised Crime Unit, Special Operations Department, Kutaisi, 2004. Databaseof Kanonieri Qurdebi.

Caucasus Research and Resource Center, 2004-2007. Caucasus Barometer Survey
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European Stability Initiative, 2010. Reinventing Georgia: The story of a Libertarian
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Godson, R. et al., 2003. Building Societal Support for the Rule of Law in Georgia,
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Government of Georgia, 2007. Georgia’s Democratic Transformation: An Update336

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Human Rights Information and Documentation Centre, 2007. What was the result of
the amendments introduced to the law after Girgvliani’s murder? Gori,Georgia.

Krunic Z. & Siradze G. 2005. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia – Report on
the Current Situation with Recommendations for Reform. Tbilisi, Georgia.

OSCE, 2004a. Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights - Elections 2004 presidential election. Available at: http://www.osce.org/odihrelections/14466.html [Accessed August 9, 2010].

OSCE, 2004b. Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights - Elections 2004 repeat parliamentary elections. Available at: http://www.osce.org/odihrelections/14465.html [Accessed August 9, 2010].

International Republican Institute, 2003-2007. Georgian National Voters Survey.
Available at: http://www.iri.org.ge/eng/welcome.htm [Accessed August 20,
2010].

Prison Service of Georgia, 2006. Reform Progress Report. Ministry of Justice, Tbilisi.

Penal Reform International, 2009. An Assessment of Penal Legislation in Georgia.
Available at: http://www.penalreform.org/publications/assessment-penallegislation-georgia [Accessed 25 August, 2010]

President’s Office, 2007. The Administration of the President of Georgia - Annual
Reports. Available at:
http://www.president.gov.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=231&info_id=
2484 [Accessed August 9, 2010].

President's Office, 2009. The Administration of the President of Georgia - Speeches.
Available at:
http://www.president.gov.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=228&info_id=
4153 [Accessed August 24, 2010].

Prosecution Service of Georgia, 2005. Law on Organised Crime. Tbilisi

337

Prosecution Service of Georgia, 2006. Report on the Criminological Situation in
Georgia. Tbilisi, Georgia.

Prosecution Service of Georgia, 2008. Criminal Code of Georgia. Tbilisi

Prosecution Service of Georgia, 2009. Revised Law on Imprisonment, Tbilisi.

Public Defender of Georgia, 2007. Human Rights in Georgia First Half of 2006.
Tbilisi, Georgia.
Public Defender of Georgia, 2007. Human Rights in Georgia Second Half of 2006.
Tbilisi, Georgia
Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office & Central Court of Inquiry, Investigation
194/05 'Operation Wasp'. Madrid, Spain.

Statistics Agency of Georgia. Criminal Justice Statistics. Available at:
http://www.geostat.ge/index.php?action=page&p_id=602&lang=eng[Accessed 25 August, 2010]

Supreme Court of Georgia. 2007. Judiciary Reform 2005-2009. Tbilisi, Georgia.

Transparency International, 2003. Corruption Perception Index. Available at:
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338

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