On your knives: Knife in russian criminal tradition

There are several reasons I have thought that it would be interesting to write this book. First, you know, russian criminal tradition has very exceptional features in comparison with other criminal traditions around the world, it is highly dependent on power. And we got so used to it, that it got mixed in our everyday life, to the extent that even politicians while making speech use words that belong to certain social environment.That is to say, this criminal tradition somehow got blended with social life and became its inseparable element, but not quite understandable. On the other hand.it was classified as secret at the turn of 50-40s,and it was made part of the USSR army secret service's arsenal.

In this book you may misunderstand meaning of the title "On your knives". You might think that "to put one on knives" (Russian “поставить на ножи"), means to murder somebody with a knife.That is not what it means. Etymology of the expression “On your knives" has an exact interpretation and meaning of what is going on. When people say “play your last card", meaning “trust in fate", but when it is said on your knives", it means “to settle a dispute between two men by the use of two knives", meaning "turning to God for help". Hence, meaning of the title “on your knives", in essence, is the same as "playing one’s last card", except in the first case it means “trust in fate", and in second “trust in God”. For this reason “by the use of two knives” is Divine justice. We will talk about its origin in this and in coming books.