Russian Mafiya Headstones

Very Understated.

Link doesn't work.

Had the same link problem.

Site won't fully load,
Computer freezes up,
Vitelli kicks computer.

This is also known as "rebooting".

Signor V.

It worked for me. Pretty gruesome if you ask me. Don't know that I would want my image on my headstone or would want to really see someone that I love's image on their headstone. But that's just me.


Don Cardi

I spent quite a while sidelining in the funeral service business and yes, some of those monuments are very over the top.

Those are typically Russian-Jewish sects that go with those stones. The odd thing is that, in the Jewish faith, simplicity is supposed to be essential when it comes to funerals. You can find some of those at Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn (Bay Parkway and McDonald Avenue), but to a much smaller degree.

I guess that not even Judaism, the oldest faith in the world, is immune to new money.

The link works now.

I thought I saw one of those guys in the pine barrens in Jersey.

Quite possibly, but if you look at the photo in the original post in this thread, you can plainly see the Russian Orthodox cross on the stone.

Signor V.

Yeah, I just caught that SV. I'm told it's more of a Russian cultural thing than a religious thing.

The fifth one down looks like Mikey Palmice from The Sopranos . Very interestng tombstones, never liked the idea of having my body in the ground.

I'm not one to speak ill of the dead but those are very tacky

One of my hubby's cousins passed away a few years ago his family had his house,car,dog and him engraved on his tombstone.

Here's some info about the so-called "Russian-Jewish Mafiya" that
may shed some light:
Every citizen of the former Soviet Union had to carry an internal passport that, among other things, listed their republic of origin: Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Khazakstan, etc. But Jews had to carry a passport that listed them as "Jew." This was a vicious expression of Russian anti-Semitism: Stalin regarded Jews as "rootless cosmopolitans" and wanted to know where to find them so he could blame the USSR's problems on them. It was unhealthy to be known as a Jew in the USSR, and a lot of them would rather not have been identified as Jews. But Stalin and his successors, who tried to eradicate all religions, insisted on the "Jew" passport, which had the unintended effect of keeping Jewish identity alive under Godless Communism.

Now to the point:

Corruption was rampant in Brezhnev's final years. A huge conterfeiting industry grew up in the USSR because gangsters needed "official paper" to get things. Then the US Congress passed the Jackson-Vanik Act in 1974, which gave the USSR favorable trading with the US in return for freer immigration out of Russia. More Jews were now free to leave the USSR, and could emigrate to Israel or the US. Suddenly there was a huge demand for counterfeit Jewish internal passports--anyone holding one could leave Russia for the West. Gangsters--mostly non-Jewish--were the prime customers for those phony passports. Those who weren't really Jewish simply hoked up Jewish names for the passports. Lots of them emigrated to the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, NY, where they became known as the "Jewish Mafia." But most weren't really Jewish.

The prime example was Marat Balagulla, a Russian thug who got to Brooklyn on one of those phony internal passports. His last name stems from the Hebrew expression "B'aal Agulah," meaning "Master of the Wheel"--a carter, which was a respected trade in Biblical times. But in Yiddish (the vernacular of East European Jews) it became "balagulla," which meant a "truck driver"--a euphemism for any uncouth person. During the heyday of Jewish gangs in the 1910's and 20's, thugs were known as "balagullas." Marat, a non-Jew, decided that a "realistic" Jewish name for his phony passport would be "balagulla," which he thought sounded Jewish, and really described his own "profession." US immigration authorities never questioned it.

That's a great post TB.

The "Russian-Jews" that I came into contact with didn't even refer to themselves as Russian. These were people of a true faith, the Bukharians.

There's a large Bukharian community in Forest Hills and they're a very pleasant and family oriented people. I worked with one guy in particular who was always the first to volunteer to cover for me on the Catholic holidays, etc...a very nice group of people with a true faith.