The Modern Mafia Gangsters of Siberia Adopted The Godfather Movie as Their Actual Scripture, To Be Followed in the Creation of Their Ethical Rules & Values

After visiting a certain number of religious shrines, one longs for seedier fare. I asked to visit two places not on the usual tourist route & my guide reluctantly acquiesced. 

The city of Yekaterinburg, a cosmopolitan city at the edge of the Ural Mountains in Siberia, was home base for some of the most prominent gangsters in modern Russian history. Shootouts in the streets in broad daylight in the middle of town, etc. They established their own Mafia Cemetery for those who fell for the cause.

The Mafia Cemetery is bordered by a lovely walkway. Elderly men sit on little benches here in the summer & remember the good old days.

     This dapper fellow was also a well-know singer of pop songs

             Even Mafia guys can be made ridiculous by Mother Nature

                       

       This Mafioso was also a famous wrestler

 This grave belongs to the girlfriend of a Mafia man. She was a prize-winning beauty queen & therefore got the full statuary treatment.

The Russian mobsters who survived became elected politicians in their old age & officiate here to this day. They improved the infrastructure of the city by building hospitals, schools, & better roads. This marked a change in philosophy from The Godfather to a Robin Hood/Black Panthers paradigm (take from the rich to improve life for the poor/we are still bad motherfuckers). This makes perfect sense to Russians, for whom gangsters & politicians are kissing cousins.

                                       R.I.P. bad guys

This city was also the secret location of the factories that made tanks & rocket launchers & other weapons of war during the communist Soviet Union era. It has only been open to foreigners for a very short time. Here's the outdoor display at a military museum.

                                      A real Soviet tank 

                     Just your average tank & rocket launcher on your average Russian street corner 

                                  The hammer & sickle still shows up here & there

Surprisingly, across town there is a quite different war remembrance, this one to Russian soldiers who died in Afghanistan. It's called "The Black Tulip" because from afar, it looks like a tulip that grows in Afghanistan. Behind the huge, very affecting sculpture rise blocks of marble containing the names of the dead.