Arkady Bronnikov is regarded as Russia’s leading expert on tattoo iconography. He was a senior expert in criminalistics at the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs for over 30 years.

As part of his duties he visited many correctional institutions of the Ural and Siberia regions, where he interviewed and photographed thousands of convicts. He regularly helped solve criminal cases across Russia by using his collection of tattoos to identify culprits and corpses.