These days one is hard pressed to find many articles at all about the Russian mafia – a generic name applied to virtually all crime groups there. A search of thousands of articles on Russia over the past five years shows that the so-called mafia has fallen from media favor. The Russians themselves rarely speak of mafia in the major cities and, according to public opinion polls, gangsters have disappeared from the top concerns of the population. The specter du jour haunting the Russian land – as reflected in the media – is corruption, followed by the continuing wave of political and business-related murders. No mafia to be found, in print at least.

What has become of the Russian mafia?

There are three basic possibilities. First, the Russian mafia has ceased to exist. Second, it has adapted to its environment. Third, it has migrated to ply its trade elsewhere. As one could imagine, the answer to the question is all three.

For some who insisted on literal meanings, the Russian mafia never existed. Some law enforcement officials and researchers have maintained that “mafia” was strictly an Italian phenomenon and, by definition, could not exist in Russia. Instead, they said, small, loose-knit groups with no central apparatus, no nationwide commission of bosses, had flooded the country. Others claimed that the hysteria of the 1990s was vastly overblown. The statistics, they said, carried no sense of proportion or nuance. Countless groups sprang up after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but many, it was argued, were relatively insignificant opportunistic gangs that never developed to the point of being very sophisticated. Many of them disappeared from the scene, their members killed off or arrested. During the so-called Great Mob War from 1992-1996, hundreds of mob chieftains and gang members were gunned down or blown up. Today, by and large, the groups do not exist.

Many would say that if the Russian mafia has indeed disappeared it’s because it has adapted to its environment. As a result of the turf wars, new rules of the game emerged, gangland interests turned toward legitimizing their ill-gotten gains, and they’ve become part of the social, political, and economic fabric of society. In conducting investigations in Russia, it was not uncommon to see this process. In our work, one year we investigated a “gangster” and the next year he was already a “businessman,” a pillar of the community and a philanthropist supporting social causes. This process wasn’t new; it had been going on since the late 1980s. Some of the most influential traditional criminals were already vice presidents and board members of large industrial concerns shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As a result, many of the 10-12,000 groups that were believed to hold Russia hostage consolidated and eventually numbered less than 200. By this time, though, Russia was beginning to stabilize and, after the ruble collapse of 1998, turned its attention to developing a more business-friendly environment. But there’s another, darker side, to this adaptation. The “disappearing act” of the Russian mafia was, in many cases, merely an exchange of the gangster wise guy motif for private security uniforms, without adapting their methods. As talk of mafia became less frequent, the number of security agencies went from some 6,000 in the mid-1990s to more than 21,000 firms by 2005, according to Graham Turbiville. Groups may have adapted in some ways but have not necessarily abandoned their old habits.

Lastly, many groups fanned out across the globe to ply their criminal trade. Whether being chased out of Russia by law enforcement efforts or underworld competition, these players established their presence in places like Prague, Budapest, Paris, London, Johannesburg, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Toronto, Tel Aviv, Mexico City, Medellin, and countless other cities. They pursue what they know best. And with considerable law enforcement and media attention focused on terrorism and the situation in Iraq, this may well be a golden age for the so-called Russian mafia around the world.

Ultimately, though, as interesting as it is to speculate on the fate of the Russian mafia, our fundamental understanding of mafia in Russia needs to be reframed. Instead of focusing on mafia as groups and trying to determine who mafia is, it seems more meaningful to speak of mafia in terms of methods – what mafia is. Mafia methods – extortion, torture, murder, and so on – are used by a wide range of actors in Russia, including businessmen, politicians, and, yes, gangsters. While that remains the case – and it seems that it will for some time to come – “normal” markets, with their demands for transparency, trust, and predictable and reliable rules and remedies, will not have a chance to develop in Russia.