“Of course, he is a godfather”: former prisoners appreciated Prigozhin’s criminal habits

But in prison they won’t take him for one of their own.

There is a popular belief that the founder of Wagner PMC Yevgeny Prigozhin gained popularity largely due to his prison past. In any case, with his target audience – prisoners, potential recruits in the colonies that he visited. “MK” asked experienced inmates to comment on the image of Yevgeny Prigozhin and his manners through the prism of the experience of the interlocutors.

Yevgeny Prigozhin often flaunts his past (he was tried in 1979 for theft and in 1981 for theft, robbery, etc.). Especially when visiting the colonies, when the founder of the PMC recruited prisoners to the front. In order to pass for his own, he said in plain text: they say, he himself served ten. And, according to the interlocutors of MK, at some point he succeeded.

“Of course, many of his jokes about “roosters” (prisoners with a low social status) were bribed that he did not recruit such people into his ranks. This is by concept. Of course, any prisoner liked to watch how Prigozhin and his entourage felt confident in front of the FSIN officers. But all this is an image, in our colony I did not meet its fans: it was and swam away, but we still have to sit here.

Another interlocutor convicted by a court verdict, on the contrary, calls for watching the latest videos with the participation of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

“Of course, he is a godfather. Ours, of those who joined his ranks, all his fathers call. Look at his posture during the interview, and with the generals in Rostov – as if in a katran (in the slang: an illegal place for gambling) he sat down, shakes with them. He definitely saw this life, he himself sat and unequivocally retained contacts with the underworld. Otherwise, he would not have been able to act like this. If he gets behind bars now, he’ll only be in the BUR (in the old days “hard security brigade”, now “a single cell-type room”, in other words, a punishment cell), otherwise he’ll put together his PMC in the camp.”

Our prison experts, commenting on the phenomenon of Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that he was trying to sell the idea, not the possibilities, by personal example. The creator of Wagner suggested that all prisoners (and not only them) try to be like him. It’s not about freedom, it’s about being outside the law (just remember how much in his speeches about “black cash”, “cops” and “dark past”), to be a part of those who are not in the system and those who are not the way they inspire fear.

But there are also prisoners who, due to the “thieves’ article and the taboo on the AUE (criminal subculture banned in the Russian Federation), do not accept Yevgeny Prigozhin and never will, experts say:

“A bandit and a criminal are two different things. Prigozhin is not a criminal, he has a different way of life, and if he falls into captivity, he will not have a place among people. Yevgeny Prigozhin is certainly a leader in his circle, but he will never become like that behind bars.”

Read the material “Personal file of Mr. Prigozhin: “He grabbed him by the neck and began to choke”