Thank you, and thanks for this insight. I knew that shesterkie is a low rank, and I was looking for something like that, but not that low
I really like "frayer", I will use that, and I will be more careful when using real terms in the future. Anyway, I don't think any culture, criminal or otherwise, will get an accurate representation in my game, at all.
Yean, I get what is your story not about Russian or post-Soviet mobsters. It's more like their "cousins". Like how American Italian ethnic gangs are not really "Italian" in the sense of European Italy.
Not to mention the fact that the game itself is in retro (80s neon I think) style.
Well, a direct transfer of modern Russian or post-Soviet terms would be incorrect. Cos in the course of certain events (thanks, Mr. Gorbachev, burn in hell), criminal society has undergone huge transformations. And this was reflected in the terminology.
In the 90s and beyond, gangs were called "brigades", their leaders were "brigadiers". This is specifically a laboring term and I doubt that it could have been used in the Soviet criminal world somewhere in the 70s.
Considering that the thieves' "code" of that time severely restricted "thieves" in their activities as such: "do not hold anything heavier than a knife or a glass in your hand".
In this sense, ordinary job is a disrespectful occupation, especially on the Soviet authorities.
For this case, there is one game called "Atom RPG".
What is interesting about it, in this case, is that the narrator of this game specifically used the world and terminology of the late Soviet Union, around the 80s and slightly late 70s, which, I think, fits perfectly into the concept of your game.
And, as it happened, the developers added one of the old Soviet police "dictionaries of criminal jargon" to the game. And considering that the game also has localization in English, then here are the translated contents of this:
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"Freier – person who enjoys no respect in the criminal circle; someone who obeys the law" - as an example of what was mentioned above.