Red Russia

Some men are terrified by the dark nature of the Moon, but not the Devil. The Devil is afraid of nothing he can fuck. And there’s very little the Devil won’t stick his dick in. He’ll bugger the Priest, orgy with Art, and rape the shit out of Justice. The whole of the Universe is the only hole he won’t try to fill.

Both Bratva and thieves in law would like to call themselves nihilists and anarchists because they don’t support the established government, but they govern nonetheless, and you can’t be an anarchist unless you follow its rule. Crime and anarchy are no more synonymous than nihilism and existentialism, or fatalism and determinism; so many isms there was bound to be a schism.

There’s Ambien-in-alcohol weird and then there’s Ambien-mistaken-for-cocaine weird.

There are scores of people who have never recovered, or been recovered, from an FSB interrogation. They’re a hard organization to describe because nothing like the FSB exists in the USA. To get even remotely close, you’d have to ask the CIA to birth a seven-headed hydra with the faces of the FBI, DEA, NSA, Immigration, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, and the Navy Seals with a hangover and a grudge.

There’s no English equivalent for silovik. It doesn’t translate succinctly because to create something as Machiavellian as a silovik requires both the KGB and the GRU, and then a shift from communism to capitalism followed by a gear-grinding reverse into despotism.

When corporate executives get really excited, they leverage their learnings against comprehension to revolutionize English.

In Russia, unwarranted smiles mark a person as either a hustler or an imbecile.

Sure, a man’s home is his castle, but if he shares it with a woman, he knows his rule is limited.

The birth of a legend is the death of a hero. Every man wishes to die a hero. A hero’s death is glorious!

The classic caricature of a Russian knocking back shot after shot of vodka is not a misrepresentation.

When you nationalize the expenditures but privatize the revenue, everything is profit.

I call myself an agnostic, but I'm more like an atheist; though admittedly, an atheist who pays respect to religion. I'm both a skeptic and an optimist, a cynic and an idealist. I rely on reason yet I am superstitious. It makes no sense, I know, but there it is nonetheless.

You know why farmer always kills fox? Fox can never take just enough. You ever see chicken house after fox comes? Chicken house is nothing but feathers and shit. Feathers and shit everywhere. Fox sees opportunity and loses mind. Fox cannot stop killing. Fox will spend all night burying bodies. More than fox can ever eat. Why? Because fox always goes too far.

Man needs money and power before he acquires mate. His value determines what is on offer.

тот что нас не убивает нас не интересует. 'That which cannot kill us does not interest us.' Exhaling poison, he explains, 'Nice sentiment shared by thieves and Bratva.

What’s to be done?” “I’ll have to go deep diving and look for the answer in the RDB.” RDB? “Rectal Data Base. Because I’m going to have to pull some serious shit out of my ass to make this work.” “Truly poetic.

I don’t really believe any of this, but still I know it. And in knowing it, there is the risk of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Fate would have it that the timing of your birth determines your measure of luck. You’re either born lucky or you’re not, though the only way to know for sure is to test it. The problem with that is most people find out they’re not lucky at the worst possible moment, usually in the throes of death or arrest.