Outskirts. The street lights are off, of course, and you're holding your phone, illuminating the concrete path with it. It got dark, empty, cold - the desire to be in a warm, cozy apartment is greater than ever. Suddenly, from the bowels of the playground comes a dashing whistle. "The nightingale the robber?" you think. But let's take a closer look: who is it calling us in a hoarse voice and unfriendly demands to approach him?

Gopniks, gops, gopars. Collectively - gopota, gopyo. We met in yards, at bus stops public transport, in underground passages. Over time, from the name of the most common subculture, it became a household name. He swore obscenities in the minibus - gopnik. Didn't throw a cigarette butt in the trash - gopnik. Drinking alcohol on the street, laughing loudly in public - gopnik. But few people think about what is the history of this culture, what rules does it have and characteristics. We decided to dispel the haze of uncertainty with our historical digression and tell everything.

HISTORY OF ORIGIN

The history of gopniks does not begin from the dashing 90s, as many people think, but from the end of the 19th century. In rainy and chilly Petrograd, on Ligovsky Prospekt, the State Prison Society is being created. In short - GOP. Homeless children and children caught in petty hooliganism and theft arrive in it. A little later, after the October Revolution of 1917, the Prize Prison Society was renamed the State Hostel of the Proletariat. The function has not changed, only the number of young violators of the law has increased several times. Residents of the city began to call the pupils of the hostel "gopniks", and the expression appeared in everyday life: "The number of gopniks is measured in leagues." And they asked ill-mannered people: “Do you live in Ligovka?”

After the Great Patriotic War, when the gopniks had not yet become a truly large-scale phenomenon, Soviet punks were operating in the courtyards of the outlying areas. Their gangs were divided into districts and were at enmity with each other, constantly arranging mass brawls. The police did not intervene, because the punks did without a serious criminal offense and did not maintain ties with the world of crime.

The term "gopnik" became widely known in the late 1980s, during the perestroika period. It was the only subculture that did not "score" certain musical genres and did not oppose the masses. But in the end, the cultural impact took its toll - the gopniks began to use the "gangster's bullshit", adhered to the "prison concepts" and felt the thieves' romance in their hearts - dirty, but honest and boyish. By the dashing 90s, they became a full-fledged part of the culture - with a chanson borrowed from those who were seated, sportswear, due to the cheapness and a huge number of fakes in the regional markets, as well as authentic rules and habits.

REGULATIONS

Gopnik Gopnik strife, not everyone adhered to the established canons. Only a few important points distinguish a gopnik from an ordinary street hooligan and lawless person:

  • Rule #1: "Opponents fight one on one." An attack by a crowd is something that was done in exceptional cases.
  • Rule #2: "Do not call for help from elders and do not complain to them." Since this is a manifestation of weakness and cowardice, which was condemned and punished.
  • Rule #3: "A fight must have a reason." Beating for no reason is a lawlessness that is punished by elders.
  • Rule #4: "You can beat, you can't maim." They fought to the first blood and never beat a person who decided to separate the fighting.
  • Rule #5: "You can't brag about something you haven't done." A person could always be required to prove his heroic deeds. In case of deceit, the braggart is guaranteed universal contempt.
  • Rule #6: "Don't touch lovers." Even if a "stranger" from another area escorts his girlfriend through someone else's territory. But as soon as the girl crosses the threshold of the house, the disassembly begins.
  • Rule #7: "You can't hit or insult girls." But this rule did not apply to girls of "easy virtue" or those who smoke cigarettes.
  • Rule #8: "You can't give up friends" - never, under any pretext.

CHARACTER TRAITS

  • Sportswear, a hedgehog hairstyle, a rosary, a cap with a visor or a black sports hat on the back of the head (the most likely version is that the gopniks copy the habit of demobilizations, who wore caps in front of a citizen in a similar way; another legend says that in the days of Kievan Rus, men in this way showed that they were ready to fight).
  • Warped "prison concepts" - according to "prison concepts" one cannot call a person who does not belong to a non-traditional sexual orientation a representative of non-traditional sexual orientation. Moreover, homosexuals should not be touched, so as not to “get sick”.
  • Cheeky speech, deviant behavior, "patriotism" - gopniks fundamentally prefer cars of a domestic manufacturer.
  • Squatting - and it is very important that the heels do not come off the ground. So prisoners in places of deprivation of liberty rested while walking in the yard, so as not to sit on the cold concrete.

How to behave with a gopnik who wants to provoke a conflict?

As mentioned in the article, in order not to pass for a “lawless person”, you cannot fight without a reason. Therefore, conflict must be created. What follows is either a simple chess game or a verbal duel. And everyone is able to win it by following simple tips:

  1. Do not approach if your name is: why should you follow his instructions?
  2. Do not shake hands: according to the "prison concepts" you should not shake the hand of a stranger. And if this is not the right kid, but a rooster - and you will get sick?
  3. Don't make excuses: your "but" will be seen as a weakness.
  4. Do not worry: weakness only provokes them to aggression.

It's a dark cool evening, the two are walking slowly through the old park on the outskirts of the city. The atmosphere of love and harmony overwhelms them, when suddenly a simple phrase “Hey, kid, is there a call?” After that, a crowd of guys comes out to meet them, dressed in old tracksuits with fancy caps on their heads. The outcome of this meeting is not difficult to predict - today the gentleman in love, most likely, will return home without his mobile phone.

Gopniks: who are they?

So, who are these gopniks? Photos of these guys can be seen on the pages of many sites, but even more often they can be seen in crime news releases. Which, of course, is not surprising.

In fact, a gopnik is a petty criminal who leads a dissolute lifestyle. These guys rarely act alone, as a rule, they gather in small groups. You can often meet them in quiet lanes and parks, as it is rarely crowded here. Seeing a lone traveler on the horizon, they immediately begin to process it. To do this, use thug jargon, threats or brute force.

Where did the term "gopnik" come from?

There are many versions regarding the background of this concept. It is rather difficult to determine which one is true, and besides, there is a high probability that there is some truth in each of them.

So, there are three main versions of the origin of the term "gopnik":

  1. The first originates in pre-revolutionary times. Then there were the so-called state charity societies (GOP). Similar organizations followed the beggars, unemployed and beggars who were in the territory of their province. All those who fell under the supervision of the charity committee were called gopniks among the common people.
  2. The second theory dates back to the early 80s. At that time, the global migration of people to megacities began in the USSR, since there were much more opportunities to earn money here than in the village. The poorest were settled in state dormitories of the proletariat, so it is not surprising that all sorts of extraordinary personalities often lived in such institutions. A little later, the inhabitants of these dormitories began to be called gopniks, thereby indicating their place of residence.
  3. Another version is based on the thieves' concept of "gop - stop", or theft. And so the guys who make their living by robbery and extortion alone are called gopniks.

The heyday of crime in the early 90s

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the fact that the judicial system was greatly weakened. took advantage of this moment and picked up most of the power for themselves. Lawlessness flourished throughout the country, the gopnik realized this and began his wild hunt.

Gopniks, like predators, scoured the streets of the city in search of new victims. Sometimes it was a random passerby, sometimes the goal was determined in advance. Indeed, in those days, local authorities often used the services of gopniks so as not to dirty their own hands. For example, quite often they were used to smash competitors' stores or to intimidate bystanders.

But as the years went by, they got stronger and stronger. Therefore, thieves in law began to conduct their business more deliberately, without raising too much dust. And they clearly did not need the stupid internecine fight of the gopniks. Therefore, they stopped using their services, much less protecting small pawns in the face of the law.

Modern gopniks: a photo in a cap is back in fashion

Now the cult of gopniks still exists, albeit not on the same scale as before. The current petty criminals, as before, "live in packs" and also lead a robbery lifestyle. True, now they are quite easy to see even in the most crowded crowd.

The modern Russian gopnik is a "clear kid" who lives "according to the rules." But these concepts are very different from those to which normal people are accustomed. Gopnik is often deprived of even elementary compassion, as he believes that there is nothing unnatural in his actions. In his mind, everything is quite simple: the strongest survive.

Another problem is that the image of a gopnik is idealized. Thanks to the series, for example, the same "Brigade", the criminal life began to attract many guys. Especially if their life was far from perfect.

Laws by which gopniks live

Let the gopnik be the dregs of society, but even in his world there are certain laws. First of all, he obeys the Zon orders, and the gopnik has no right to transgress them. Otherwise, he may lose credibility in the eyes of his comrades.

That is why the gopniks first of all try to intimidate their victim morally. To do this, they use conversational tricks. "Who are you?" or “What are you doing here?” Such questions are a kind of greeting, and if a person answers incorrectly, then the gopnik begins an active verbal assault. Everything goes according to a long-established scheme, thanks to which the victim turns into a sucker. And “according to concepts”, from a sucker, it’s not a sin to ask.

Who becomes a gopnik?

Often a similar lifestyle is led by those who were born in Deprived of parental warmth and affection, they early years watching others enjoy life. This hardened their hearts and minds, moreover, they passionately want to get everything that they were deprived of, no matter how.

Alcohol also plays an important role. Gopniks drink beer from an early age, sometimes even vodka, because now getting alcohol is easy. And what to expect from a person who starts drinking at 10-12 years old?

The final factor is bad company. After all, if you live with wolves for a long time, then you begin to howl like a wolf.

Gopnik(also - gopy, gopari, collectively - gopota, gopoten, also self-name - boys) - a slang word of the Russian language, a derogatory designation of representatives of the urban, close to the criminal world or with criminal behavioral traits, a layer of Russian youth, as well as youth of the countries of the former USSR ( since the end of the twentieth century), often poorly educated, coming from dysfunctional families

Origin and meanings of the word "gopnik"

The Russian writer A. A. Sidorov, writing under the pseudonym Fima Zhiganets, analyzing the origin of the word gopnik, refers to Vladimir Dahl, in whose dictionary the word gop “expresses a jump, jump or blow ..., gop, jump or hit.” According to A. A. Sidorov, the word "gopnik" (or "gopstopnik") refers to a street robber. The same follows from short dictionary criminal jargon compiled by Yu. K. Alexandrov, where the word "gopnik" denotes a robber. According to the information service of the Russian “Reference and Information Portal Gramota.ru”, the word “gopnik” refers to the slang words of the Russian language and means “swindler, raider; pogromist, hooligan."

A. A. Sidorov notes that the word "gopnik" is also used to refer to "beggars, vagrants, homeless people." According to Sidorov, this meaning arose even before the revolution of 1917, when in Russia there were "orders of public charity" - provincial committees, which were in charge of caring for the "poor, crippled, sick, orphans, etc." special care homes at the expense of zemstvo funds. In this sense, the word "gopnik" comes from the word GOP, which stands for "City Society of Charity" (from the word prizor - care, care). Due to the fact that the funds allocated to help the poor and the homeless were not enough, the inhabitants of the charity houses were engaged in vagrancy, begging, and petty theft. Therefore, the word "gopnik" soon began to be called "tramps, ragamuffins and beggars." This meaning was preserved after the October Revolution of 1917. According to the Big dictionary Russian language” (editor-in-chief S. A. Kuznetsov) gopnik — “a person from the social lower classes; tramp". According to the explanatory and derivational dictionary of the Russian language of the candidate of philological sciences T.F. Efremova, the word "gopnik" means "a downtrodden person, a tramp."

At the end of the 19th century, in the premises of the modern Oktyabrskaya Hotel, located on Ligovsky Prospekt, the State Society of Charity was organized, where homeless children and teenagers were brought, engaged in petty robbery and hooliganism. After the October Revolution of 1917, the State Hostel of the Proletariat was organized in this building for the same purposes. The number of juvenile delinquents who hunted in this area has increased several times. Among the residents of the city, the word "gopniks" appeared, which was used to call the residents of the GOP from Ligovka. The expression “the number of gopniks is measured in leagues” appeared, and among the inhabitants of Petrograd, then Leningrad, it was customary to ask ill-mannered people: “Do you live in Ligovka?”

A. A. Sidorov notes that at the end of the 1920s, the “bastard brethren” used the word “gop” to call the rooming houses, and their inhabitants - “gopniks”, or “gopa”. Russian sociologists V. I. Dobrenkov and A. I. Kravchenko noted that the word “gopnik” is derived from the word gop, a slang word for beggars who have absorbed elements of criminal culture and which means “staying in a rooming house”.

Sidorov draws attention to the plot of the story by L. Panteleev and G. G. Belykh “Republic of ShKID”, in which the teacher, wanting to threaten the pupils, shouts at them: “You only bug me. I tell you ... Gopa Kanavskaya! Talking about the wanderings of one of the heroes of the story, the authors write: railways with the soldiers' trains heading to the front.

Analyzing the origin of the word, Sidorov also draws attention to the common and associated with the word "gopnik" expression gop-company, which means "a cheerful gathering of people who are not too serious and reliable, on whom it is better not to rely on responsible business."

According to E. N. Kalugina (Stavropol State Agrarian University), the word "gopnik" can be called "primitive, poorly educated young man". Sociologist Albina Garifzyanova understands gopniks as "uneducated people, culturally backward, absolutely intolerant."

Concepts close in meaning: hooligans, punks, street boys, yard gangs, lumpen.

The word "gopnik" has an analogue in English language: "chav" (English - chav) is a widely used pejorative slang word for a young man of low social status who usually wears "branded" sportswear, which is also characteristic of gopniks.
Characteristics of representatives

As a stable expression, the word appeared in the late 1980s in relation to representatives of the youth, for whom the theft of property on the street was not so much a professional craft, but, as Saratov researcher Elena Bessonova notes, “part of the image of a criminalized community, a means of entertainment and a way to maintain authority ". According to the researcher, in the 1990s, "gopas" appeared, for whom everything characteristic of the life of their "ancestors", to which the author refers to criminals, became "a kind of philosophy of life, worldview, a way to position oneself in society." Bessonova notes that “for the modern gop, it is mainly more important to scare and humiliate a person, to test his power over him, and then to embezzle his money.” Proximity to the criminal world predetermined the use of thieves' jargon and profanity.

Socially, representatives of the subculture mainly come from the outskirts of industrial cities. Most gopniks came from poor, dysfunctional families.

The image and behavior of a typical gopnik is a parody of the representatives of the criminal world of the 1990s in Russia and other CIS countries. The black leather jacket and sports leotards were taken over by the teenagers straight from them. Gopniks were engaged in petty theft and extortion of money.

Representatives of the gopnik stratum are distinguished by pronounced aggression against members of society oriented towards Western values ​​(as a rule, against “informals” oriented towards Western culture), and they also disdain the so-called. loham - to everyone who does not comply with the "boys' concepts" - the unspoken rules of behavior that have developed in the criminal environment.

As Ramil Khanipov (Kazan State Technical University named after A.N. Tupolev) notes, “The City Center for the Prevention of Neglect and Drug Addiction of Minors of St. Petersburg designates gopniks as “informal associations” and includes them in the “aggressive” section. Internet forum discussions speak about the level of development of these informal associations as follows: “... from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, gopniks are still the most common form of youth associations to this day,” and all the sources used emphasize the pronounced criminal and group nature of this subculture: “Mostly these are fights , robberies, raids that are aimed at extracting money ..., alcohol and cigarettes.

The head of the Moscow branch of the LDPR, O. Lavrov, stated that the gopniks make up a certain part of the electoral base of his party: We believe that the gopniks are the most powerful political force in Russia. People laugh at us, call us a party of outcasts: gopniks, thieves, vagrants and drunkards. But, you see, these are all people whose interests no one else represents. We have created our points on railway stations and at one time we had a million members. When we nominated Malyshkin as a presidential candidate in the 2004 elections, people were shocked. Well, yes, of course, he is not an intellectual, but the gopniks will vote for him.

Doctor of sociological sciences, director of the New Generation project of the Public Opinion Foundation, Larisa Pautova, in 2009 believed that “gopota” is at least 25 percent of today's youth. By this word, the sociologist means young people who do not aspire to anything, finding themselves in the mass of their own kind.

Unlike most informal youth associations (for example, hippies, punks, role players), the gopniks did not assign any names to the rest of the population and did not distinguish themselves as a separate group relative to the entire population, which means that they did not recognize themselves as a subculture.

Most youth subcultures are characterized by a hostile attitude towards gopniks, reaching extreme antagonism.

Researcher Elena Bessonova notes that at the beginning of Perestroika, the gopniks were the only ones among the youth who were not fond of any music. Later, representatives of the subculture were prone to thieves' music, Russian chanson (Mikhail Krug, Butyrka group). Also, many prefer pop (pop music) and "boy" rap.


And much more.
Exile magazine decided to write an article about them
The site Inopressa.ru translated this article
Do we honor?

For several months now, our foreign readers have been pestering us with the question: "Who are the gopniks?" They have a vague idea about the appearance of the gopniks thanks to our Face Control column: they say, these are such Russian guys like "don't put your finger in your mouth" with pimply skin and stupid faces, which reflect only one thought "Yes, I put it on you!". These guys are more comfortable squatting than standing. But, most importantly, these are the last males on planet Earth who manage to wear 1920s leather gangster caps with chic - everyone else in such caps looks like nothing more than faggots from theater school rehearsing some musical.

Gopniks are cool because there is no place for self-irony in their world. Something, but you can’t take away “authenticity” from them. In an era when "authenticity" is the most valuable and rare quality, gopniks occupy the top rung of the hierarchy of coolness in the world. Proof of the authenticity of the gopniks is their fantastically courageous tastes: a mixture of bad taste, menace and the loud chic inherent in the "third world", the impudence of which even the most avant-garde, non-avant-garde of Western "advanced people" will not even dream of in a dream - in their bourgeois white hands it will instantly turn harmless kitsch. Even the fact that gopniks like to turn on techno to the fullest, sing shitty songs under karaoke in cheap cafes with color music, or wear cheap pointed leather shoes to match their 1920s ragtime-style pill caps, cannot take away their status as the most dangerous scum from among the white population of the whole world.

But the history of Russian gopniks is by no means a simple hymn to a kind of authentic badass that the bourgeoisie has not yet discovered. On the contrary, it is a tragedy worthy of its scale. great literature. Like Faulkner's Old South or Tolstoy's fading noble landowners, Russian gopniks are the heroes of a tragic tale of a dying breed of people who were once so proud of themselves.

Charles Portis notes that when a people is called "proud" in a guidebook, it is usually a euphemism meaning "beasts rather than men." As for the gopniks, they really hardly reach the people, and this is precisely their obscene charm. Take the word "gopnik" itself: there are few terms that one hundred percent correspond to the designated object. "Gop" sounds vicious, stupid and funny, but not so funny that you dare to laugh in the face of a gopnik. This word is also fun on a private trip - when you are securely barricaded in your car, the windows are up, the doors are locked, your foot is on the gas pedal, and the children and wife are yelling in horror: "Just don't stop at the red!"

How and when did the gopnik culture emerge?

The word "gopnik" was not a witty invention of the poet. At its core, as well as at the foundation of many other wonderful Russian words, is the abbreviation: "State hostel of the proletariat." Add to "G.O.P." suffix "nick" - and the new biological species is ready.

And he was born, according to the legends, after the Bolshevik coup. According to the most reliable sources that we have (and this is the opinion of Shnur, vocalist of the Leningrad group), gopniks came to Petrograd in the 1920s in search of work. By origin, they were peasants or completely landless erratic barren. They tumbled out of the trains in droves and, with luck, found shelter in newly rebuilt hostels, where they turned into the first local ghetto gangstas of Soviet Russia.

The “ordinary gopnik” species even had its own specific habitat - Ligovsky Prospekt, building 10. Actually, this is a hotel, now called Oktyabrskaya, which the Soviet authorities made a hostel for visiting proletarians, and the gopniks in their own way turned into a collectivist gangster club. Since they were outsiders in their own villages, often children from single-parent families, and many already had petty crimes on their account, if not worse, indigenous people Petrograd, and then Leningrad, treated the gopniks with disgust. They entered the legends as blatari and lucky, which even the Soviet system could not break. They had their own code of honor, they lived by their own rules, they had their own tattoos on their fingers, their own fashions. They represented something like a caste of "thieves in law" in the world of delinquent "hooligans".

Over time, when the specific fashion, slang and worldview of the gopniks spread among the lower classes of the country's population, the meaning of the word changed. Now the expression "gopnik" meant not a tough country guy from the building that later housed the Oktyabrskaya Hotel, but any dubious type with a shaved head, in a thick leather jacket, stupid leather boots and an immortal pillbox cap. You could also call any guy who squats in the yard, dressed in a tracksuit and slippers, sips Zhigulevskoye from his throat and husks sunflower seeds, and sometimes yells at his wife to shut her up, because she has no worries. no - just take the child for a walk in a used Turkish stroller, which he took away from someone else's hut ...

In the 1990s, it seemed that the gopniks would soon take over, if not the whole world, then at least one sixth of the land on our planet. Gopniks ruled the roost in all of Russia's famed 11 time zones, from the lobby of the now-demolished Intourist Hotel just a couple of hundred meters from Red Square to the commercial kiosk-lined embankment in Vladivostok and every geographical point in between. Gopniks – or Russian men who have adopted the style of gopniks – have flooded into every area of ​​life, from biznes, where they played the role of sixes and cannon fodder, to politics, where, as LDPR deputies, they formed the core of resistance to Western influence.

The whole nation went into gopniks: shaved heads, stern faces, on which it was read: "I trampled the zone!" and an extraordinary gift for choosing the most tasteless clothes, no matter how much they cost. Some have swapped out their leather jackets and olympics for Hugo Boss brown blazers. But they could not resist the temptation to complete it all with shiny mulks: gold chains around their arms and neck, fancy watches that, for all their authenticity, shone so much with gold that they seemed more like a penny Vietnamese fake. The great thing is that the 1990s echoed the perfect gopnik soundtrack: shitty techno blaring non-stop from every restaurant, every shawarma kiosk, every Zhiguli or stolen Mercedes, every hotel room converted to "offis ". Wherever you went in Russia in the 1990s, there was simply no escape from bad techno.

But no one realized then, and even today only a few realize that the 1990s were not so much the rise of the Gopnik Nation as the Beginning of its End.

Last weekend we decided to arrange a Gopnik Safari - an anthropological field expedition to introduce you, eXile readers, to the world of gopniks. We asked our Russian friends where is the best place to go to observe gopniks in their natural habitat. The advice was very different: “Yes, there are plenty of them everywhere!”, “Go to any Russian city at random!”, “You don’t even need to leave Moscow: get off the metro at any station outside the circle line, and they will find you themselves.”

The most interesting answer was given by our journalist Vika Brook, who once wrote a Generation Elitny column for us: alcoholic husband, my cousin Maxim is a security guard, my other cousin Alexei is also a security guard, in a bank, and my cousin Natasha is divorcing her husband, he is a scoundrel and a loafer, my uncle Alexander is selling Chinese shoes in the market, and his son Alexander - he serves in the army, and his second son Eduard - this one is generally unclear what he does. In general, gopniks to hell - I have all the relatives of gopniks. "

Alas, Big Heads of the Bow are located in the Pskov region, and we needed something closer. Among the cities of the Moscow region, none can match the gloomy reputation of Lyubertsy, a working-class suburb in the south of Moscow, just across the Moscow Ring Road. In the 1990s, Lyubertsy was known as the capital of gopniks. Criminality was as common there as tracksuits and seed husks. One girl, born and raised in Lyubertsy, who moved to Moscow in the early 1990s, told us: “All the guys I knew there were gopniks. If you go there, you will probably see them everywhere, but I can’t say for sure "I haven't been there since." When we asked if she could call one of her childhood friends, she said: “I can’t. Almost everyone died, some from drugs, some were shot, some were stabbed. me. I don't know anyone else there."

Early on Saturday evening we went to Lyubertsy by taxi. It was hot outside, hotter than usual at this time of year. We reasoned that although some of the gopniks are probably relaxing at some depression where toxic industrial waste is splashing (called the local "beach" or "lake"), we will see enough individuals squatting at the kiosks and in the yards to make our anthropological aspirations come true. But we made an unexpected discovery. We drove slowly through the center of Lyubertsy, expecting to see, if not fresh corpses—material for our Death Porn column—then at least bloodstains indicative of recent events of this type. But in reality, the city turned out to be ... uh ... let someone hit us in the face with a wet fish for what we are about to say, but the city turned out to be ... uh ... quite still pleasant, in the spirit of a family idyll. Shady streets, lots of greenery, clean sidewalks, strolling couples and families. On one section of one of the central streets, we counted at least four Japanese restaurants, as well as several standard restaurants of the Rosinter chain and Torgovie Tsentri, fenced off with hamster cages.

True, in Lyubertsy there were fewer mega-expensive foreign cars, but there were a lot of inexpensive ones. Even the "Zhiguli" were neat and clean. We got just one "Lada" with tuning in the style of "disco car" - with flashing red lights. If America has "Rice Rockets", then this Nation of Gopniks must certainly have their own "Shawarma Shuttles" ("Shawarma Shuttles"). However, we noticed a single "Shawarma Shuttle" in a whole sea of ​​bourgeois cars. It was pointless to walk around Lyubertsy. If we want to find gopniks, then we must think like gopniks. Where will they go? To the park! And not just to the park, but to that place in the park, where plastic garden furniture is arranged around a kiosk belching raucous 1990s techno. This, speaking in the language of gopniks, "cafe". Hm...

Let's not drag out our story. We found the park. And "kafe" with plastic garden furniture too. They took beer. Sat down. And we will fall through the ground if we saw at least one gopnik around us for the entire time we were chilling there. Actually, the kafe was very civilized: techno did not thunder, the beer was cold, the visitors did not meddle in other people's business - and among them there was even a couple of indie goths. At first we began to complain at the top of our voices, sad that we were left without material. But then the disappointment began to grow into anxiety. What happened to the gopniks? Maybe they all went somewhere for the weekend? Or is the weather too hot for them? Or did they leave Lyubertsy for more evil places?

We decided to leave the civilized "kafe" and walk through the park, among a dull collection of rusty Soviet-era children's attractions, which lacked only a sign: "If you want to have an abortion, although all deadlines have passed, put the child in a chair on this attraction, move away give us five rubles and we'll do the rest." In the park, we noticed a company of topless men who played tricks at the horizontal bar. But, coming closer, they realized that these were not gopniks at all, but Caucasians, "black-assed", the diametrical opposite of gopniks. After wandering around Lyubertsy for several hours, we finally gave up. If there are no gopniks here, where are they to be found, motherfucking their legs?

Then we chose one of the most sinister districts of Moscow, Brateevo, the very name of which is synonymous with the concept of "gopnik". It's one of those remote areas where every square inch of land is littered with 17-story white-paneled houses—huge, nightmarish, off-white concrete slabs. When you drive up to Brateevo along the Moscow Ring Road, it seems that panel houses are stuck there so closely and chaotically that it is not clear how you can squeeze between them at all - for sure the sun does not shine here and all the vegetation has withered. But, alas, not all that glitters is gold.

And again, armed with beer and heading into the shithole itself, we found ourselves face to face with someone much worse than brigades of squatting gopniks - among hordes of people who had nothing in common with gopniks. And again, families, baby carriages, nice cars, teenagers dressed in new fashion - sort of goths of pop pouring, beautiful girls walking dogs. In fact, Brateevo has become so cosmopolitan that although we deliberately spoke loudly in English, no one paid any attention to us. We were ignored even by stray dogs. It remains only to look into the local billiard room. If where to look for gopniks - at least one piece of antiquity - then only there. Well, three times guess who we didn't find there.

If you follow the Russian blogosphere, then it will seem to you that in Russia the gopniks are so ubiquitous that they are about to multiply beyond all limits, flood across the borders and take over China. Wherever you poke, the sites mock Russian gopniks or ridicule them so zealously that it is already turning into praise. We should have known in advance, based on our Western experience which happens every time advanced people discover some "authentic" lower class subculture. Consider that the subculture is dead, dead, gone to dust. Actually, this is the point of our article: we want not only to acquaint the world with Gopnik, but at the same time to inform about his, Gopnik, tragic death. Because as soon as something so cool comes into fashion, expect trouble.

What happened to the gopniks? Most sources agree that two factors contributed to their extinction. First, in the 1980s and 1990s, hard drugs and guns suddenly became ubiquitous. Their incorporation into a culture as fearless and primitive as gopnic meant that in one decade, almost half of the individuals went to the other world.

The second reason has more to do with environmental changes. The arrival of Western bourgeois values ​​and cultural preferences, and the beginning of a period of outward stability, growth, and sobriety under Putin, means that the 70-year reign of the gopnik as king of the rebel world has come to an abrupt end: Russians of all social strata have quickly come to hate the gopnik’s dork aesthetic. The Russians were ashamed of the gopniks and looked at them with disgust, and only a year or two ago, when it was already too late, they realized that the gopniks were a great national wealth, a "Russian idea" in human form, the only ones who did not descend to show off.

Once upon a time, young Russian "cools" romanticized gopniks, but now they take a cue from rappers (preferably white). The neo-patriots of the Putin era also no longer need gopniks, although gopniks have always been the most ardent Russian patriots. In Putin's era, patriotic youth look more European, dress more European, listen to music in European and even American style. The only vestige of the gopnik gene is that even the most quasi-western-looking young Russian guy (or young Russian girl) carries in his heart the classic gopnik worldview: blind chauvinism, anti-Americanism, hatred of black people and, of course, a penchant for gopnik antics on flights " Aeroflot, where even the richest and most traveled Russian turns on recessive gopnik genes, forcing him (her) to dress up in a tracksuit and slippers, turn off Moskovsky cognac, sing songs loudly and bend over neighbors' chairs - if not fall on the neighbors themselves .

But just as the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex evolved into a dove, right before our eyes, the gopnik is rapidly degrading into a creature that can only be called a "skinny guy with liquid coke, who is presented to everyone as a brand manager, and actually works at the Euroset kiosk, where he managed to pocket enough money to buy a used Nissan Almera, which he loves more than anything."

Nothing speaks so eloquently about the tragic disappearance of a gopnik from the face of the earth as the fact that Shnur from the Leningrad group, a big fan of gopnik culture, is going to open a "Gopnik Museum" in his native St. Petersburg. Shnur's group romanticizes the gopniks in front of a middle-class audience that finally appreciates them, albeit in a semi-ironic spirit that wouldn't be possible if the gopniks hadn't disappeared. Even the original cradle of gopniks - building 10 on Ligovsky Prospekt - today is nothing more than a three-star hotel, where a night in the cheapest room will cost $ 100.

As in the case of Faulkner's Old South and Tolstoy's dying landowning nobles, we glorify and mourn Russian gopniks only today, when it's too late, and they can only be aesthetic objects for us, symbols of a bygone era that was much cleaner than ours, not suffered from notorious irony and deeply secondary coolness, an era where there was no dull office life that increasingly drags Russians into the Putin era.

What do politicians say about gopniks

Oleg Lavrov, head of the Moscow branch of the LDPR:

"We believe that gopniks are the most powerful political force in Russia. People laugh at us, call us a party of outcasts: gopniks, thieves, vagrants and drunkards. But, you see, these are all people whose interests no one else represents. We created our points at railway stations, and at one time we had a million members. When we nominated Malyshkin as a presidential candidate in the 2004 elections, people were shocked. Well, yes, of course, he is not an intellectual, but gopniks will vote for him. "

Gopnik Anatomy

The pillbox cap is a key element of the gopnik outfit. Leather - for serious murders, stripes - for all sorts of trifles like rape in the country.

Ears - usually stick out more than the average Homo sapiens, thanks to fights, as well as an indispensable haircut to zero.

Shish kebab - gopniks (like all Russians) believe that meat tastes best when it is fried on a stick over a fire.

Sweatpants still remain the most ergodynamic for squatting.

Shoes - gopniks prefer a) pointed leather boots or b) slippers, but as cultural assimilation sometimes wear sneakers.

Glass - Everyone knows that vodka tastes best when served warm in plastic cups. It is very important that several midges float on its surface.

Jacket - if he had a sticker on his bumper, it would say "Don't think, I have a leather jacket."

Forehead - convex frontal lobes are inherited from distant ancestors - people.

Gopnik(also gopy, gopari, collectively - gopota , gopoten, gopyo- a slang word of the Russian language, denoting representatives of the urban stratum of low social status, poorly educated and lacking moral values, aggressive youth (teenagers), with criminal behavioral traits (less often close to the criminal world), often coming from dysfunctional families, and uniting according to signs counterculture (informal subculture). The term is widely used in Russia and the countries of the former USSR (since the end of the twentieth century).

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Characteristic

Socially, representatives of the subculture mainly come from the outskirts of industrial cities. Most gopniks came from dysfunctional, poor families. They are alien to such moral values ​​as honesty, devotion, respect, courtesy, diligence. They, as a rule, are cunning and mercantile, rogue, prone to meanness, betrayal, fawning, hypocrisy and dirty tricks. The image and behavior of a typical gopnik is a parody of the representatives of the criminal world of the 1990s in Russia and other CIS countries. The black leather jacket and tracksuit were also adopted by the teenagers from them. Gopniks were engaged in petty theft, extortion of money, robberies and beatings of random passers-by (especially at night).

They do not call themselves "gopniks" and are usually characterized by the self-name "normal boys", "real boys" or "correct boys". The word "gopnik" in relation to themselves is considered humiliating. The gopniks oppose the so-called. "suckers", however, among the gopniks, there is no clear definition of "sucker". In this regard, the name "loh" is used by gopniks, depending on whether it is beneficial for the gopnik or not, and can even be applied to other gopniks. In addition, representatives of the stratum of gopniks are distinguished by pronounced aggression against members of society who have a higher social position compared to gopniks, as well as against other representatives of society, whose worldview is focused on a progressive lifestyle, intelligence, etc. "Western values" (for example, against "informals", "oppositionists" oriented towards Western culture).

The word became widespread in the late 1980s in relation to those representatives of the youth for whom the theft of property on the street was, as Saratov researcher Elena Bessonova notes, "part of the image, a means of entertainment and a way to maintain authority". According to the researcher, in the 1990s, “gopas” appeared, for whom everything characteristic of the life of their “ancestors”, to which the author refers to criminals, became "a kind of philosophy of life, worldview, a way to position yourself in society". However, Bessonova notes that, unlike criminals, “ for the modern gopa, for the most part, it is more important to try to scare and humiliate a person, to make an attempt to test his power over him, and then to embezzle his money» . Proximity to the criminal world predetermined the use of thieves' jargon and profanity.

Unlike most informal youth associations (for example, hippies, punks, rockers), the gopniks did not assign any names to the rest of the population and did not distinguish themselves into a group separate from the rest of the population, which means that they did not recognize themselves as a subculture.

Researcher Elena Bessonova notes that at the beginning of Perestroika, the gopniks were the only subcultures of the youth environment who were not fond of any music. Later, representatives of the subculture became prone to thieves' music, Russian chanson (Mikhail Krug, Butyrka group, Sergey Nagovitsyn). Also, many people prefer " pop" (pop music), "pump" (pumping house) and "boy rap".

As the candidate of sociological sciences Ramil Khanipov notes, “The city center for the prevention of neglect and drug addiction of minors in St. Petersburg designates gopniks as “informal associations” and includes them in the “aggressors” section. Internet forum discussions speak about the level of development of these informal associations as follows: “... from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, gopniks are still the most common form of youth associations to this day,” and all the sources used emphasize the pronounced criminal and group nature of this subculture: “Mostly these are fights , robberies, raids that are aimed at extracting money ..., alcohol and cigarettes "" .

Doctor of sociological sciences, director of the New Generation project of the Public Opinion Foundation, Larisa Pautova, in 2009, believed that "gopota" is at least 25 percent of today's youth. The sociologist means by this word people who do not aspire to anything, without any moral values, who find themselves in the mass of their own kind.

The head of the Moscow branch of the LDPR, O. Lavrov, stated that the gopniks make up a certain part of the electoral base of his party:

We believe that gopniks are the most powerful political force in Russia. People laugh at us, call us a party of outcasts: gopniks, thieves, vagrants and drunkards. But, you see, these are all people whose interests no one else represents. We set up our points at railway stations and at one time we had a million members. When we nominated Malyshkin as a presidential candidate in the 2004 elections, people were shocked. Well, yes, of course, he is not an intellectual, but the gopniks will vote for him.

Character traits

At the end of the 19th century, in the premises of the modern Oktyabrskaya Hotel, located on Ligovsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg, the State Prison Society (GOP) was organized, where homeless children and adolescents engaged in petty robbery and hooliganism were brought. After the October Revolution of 1917, the State Hostel of the Proletariat was organized in this building for the same purposes. The number of juvenile delinquents in the area has increased several times. Among the residents of the city, the word "gopniks" appeared, which was used to call the residents of the GOP from Ligovka. The expression “the number of gopniks is measured in leagues” appeared, and among the inhabitants of Petrograd, then Leningrad, it was customary to ask ill-mannered people: “Do you live in Ligovka?” .

  1. aggressive teenager
  2. primitive, uneducated young man
  3. student of class "G" (in the jargon of schoolchildren)

Philologist E. N. Kalugina agrees with her, noting that the word “gopnik” can be called “ primitive, poorly educated young man» . Sociologist Albina Garifzyanova characterizes the gopniks as "uneducated people, culturally backward, absolutely intolerant". Russian sociologists V. I. Dobrenkov and A. I. Kravchenko noted that the word "gopnik" is derived from the word gop- the slang word for beggars, who have absorbed elements of criminal culture, and meant "stay in a rooming house".

A. A. Sidorov notes that the word "gopnik" is also used to refer to " beggars, vagrants, homeless people". According to Sidorov, this meaning arose even before the revolution of 1917, when in Russia there were "orders of public charity" - provincial committees, which were in charge of caring for "the poor, crippled, sick, orphans, etc." special care homes at the expense of zemstvo funds. In this sense, the word "gopnik" comes from the word GOP, which stands for "City Prison Society" (from the word prize- care, care). Due to the fact that the funds allocated to help the poor and the homeless were not enough, the inhabitants of the houses of the prize were engaged in vagrancy, begging, and petty theft. Therefore, the word "gopnik" soon began to be called "tramps, ragamuffins and beggars." This meaning was preserved after the October Revolution of 1917. According to the Big Dictionary of the Russian Language (Editor-in-Chief S. A. Kuznetsov), the gopnik is “ a person from the lower social classes; tramp» . Philologist T. F. Efremova, the word "gopnik" means " a downcast man, a vagabond» .

Concepts close in meaning: urla, hooligans, punks, yard gangs, lumpen. [ ]

The word "gopnik" has an analogue in English: "chav" (eng. - chav)- a widely used pejorative slang word for a young man of low social status, who usually wears "branded" sportswear, which is also typical for gopniks in the post-Soviet space.

In addition, there is a version that the word "gopniks" is taken from the samizdat cult fantasy story "Journey to Black Ukhur", which describes the "planet of gopniks" as the personification of world evil. The popularizer of this word at the end of the 20th century, Mike Naumenko, in one of In an interview, he said directly that he got this word from the work of A. Startsev and A. Dideykin. [ ]

Using the word as a political cliché

Since the end of the first decade of the 21st century, in the media, in the speeches of Russian journalists, writers, as well as opposition politicians, a new ideological cliché “jubilant gopota” began to sound. With the help of this epithet, they characterized the participants of various youth mass organizations that supported the political course of the authorities. It first appeared on January 29, 2008 in the Kommersant newspaper in an article about the Nashi movement.

On February 2, 2008, the writer and TV and radio presenter Viktor Shenderovich, in his author's radio program "Processed Cheese", ironically plays up a new epithet:

Greenpeace activists are seriously concerned about the situation in the Russian hinterland, the Hamsters on the March magazine informs readers. Domesticated, but thrown out into the street by the former owners, the so-called "Ours" now roam the forests and outskirts of cities, huddle in flocks and hold noisy rallies on the edges. Capturing stray gopota and subsequent attempts to accustom them to reading, writing and useful work have not yet brought results.

The phrase was later actively used by the media, politicians and bloggers, and if initially it was used only in a negative way in relation to the Nashi movement, then it began to be used more widely.

On September 19, 2009, in an article by columnist Pavel Svyatenkov, "jubilant gopota" refers to "a reactionary force standing in the way of a coup."

On October 10, 2009, an article appeared on a number of regional portals devoted to the conflict between the editors of the Kaliningrad information site and the former head of the local branch of the youth movement "Going Together" and a participant in the Seliger 2009 forum, Konstantin Minich, which was titled as "Control over" Kaliningrad. Ru" is trying to get "jubilant gopota" ".

Reflection in popular culture

In movie

  • The Boys is a 1983 film.
  • "American" - a 1997 film.
  • "My name is Arlekino" - a 1988 film.
  • "Odyssey 1989" - 2003 film.
  • Boomer. Film second "2006.
  • "Boys of Steel" is a 2004 Russian TV series.
  • "Racketeer" - a 2007 film.
  • "Alien" - a 2010 film.
  • The Real Boys is a 2010 Russian television series. This series causes a lot of controversy as to whether it was filmed for gopniks or is it a satire on their lives. The creators of the series took a neutral stance, stating that "real boys" are "real" because they "live according to real, not fictional, life scenarios."
  • “Give it to the youth! "- Russian sketch show (characters Bashka and Rusty).
  • "Gop-stop" - a 2010 film.
  • "University. New hostel "- a series of 2011 (characters Ivanych (Maxim Ivanov) and Kisel (Alexey Kiselyov)).
  • "Winter way" - a 2013 film.
  • "The Law of the Stone Jungle" is a 2015 Russian crime television series.
  • "Everything at once" - a film in 2014.
  • A documentary film from the "Investigation" series called "Death Wish", dedicated to a fighter who killed hooligans and gopniks.

In literature

  • "Gopniks" is a book (a story and 6 stories) by the Belarusian writer Vladimir Kozlov.

In music

Gopnik dedicated to a lot musical works. One of the first mentions of gopniks is noted in Leonid Utyosov's song "Gop" with a "smoke" from his repertoire of 1929-1933.

The song "Gopniks" by Mike Naumenko and the Zoo group () became widely known. One of the verses of the song describes the behavior of the gopniks:

Among the songs that tell about gopniks:

"Gopota" is the name of a musical group from St. Petersburg.

Foreign analogues

  • Chav - in the UK
  • Dresiary - in Poland
  • Azzi (short for antisocial) - in Germany
  • Knackers - in Ireland
  • Bogans - in Australia
  • Cani - in Spain
  • Nyero - in Colombia
  • Rakai - in France
  • Yankees - in Japan
  • Arsy - in Israel

see also

Notes

  1. , Gopota, -s, f., collected. Aggressive adolescents, p. 55.
  2. , Gopnik, -a, m. 1. more often pl. Aggressive teenager. 2. Primitive, uneducated young man. 3. School Student of class "G", p. 55.
  3. , from. 114.
  4. Elena Bessonova. Don't say "gop" until you jump over him... // www.rasklad.ru
  5. Pavel Kanygin. Gopniks // Novaya Gazeta, No. 33, May 12, 2008
  6. Khanipov R. A."Gopniks" -  meaning of the concept, and elements representation subculture “Gopniks  in Russia // “Social Identities in Transforming Societies”
  7. Modern youth // Says Moscow, October 16, 2009
  8. Mark Ames and Yasha Levin.