The negotiation between Zhorik and Chicha is conducted almost entirely in the vocabulary of the Soviet and post-Soviet criminal underworld, the vorovskoy mir («thieves’ world»), organized around the vory v zakone («thieves-in-law») — a criminal caste with its own hierarchy, rituals, and unwritten law, forged largely in the Gulag camp system of the 1930s–1950s. Zona and volya are camp slang for, respectively, the prison camp itself and the outside world of freedom. Masti («suits,» as in a deck of cards) denotes the rigid caste system of the Russian prison hierarchy, from thieves-in-law at the top down to the outcast «untouchables» at the bottom — hence Zhorik’s threat that everyone will «answer according to their suit.» A pravilny zhulik («righteous» or «correct» thief) is one who lives strictly by the thieves’ code — no cooperation with the authorities, no regular work, no family ties that compromise the brotherhood. The gravest violation of that code is becoming a suka («bitch,» i.e., an informer or camp trusty who collaborates with the prison administration) — a category so despised it triggered the so-called «Bitches’ War» (Сучья война), a wave of violent purges within the Gulag system after World War II. A tsentral («central») is a high-security central prison reserved for the most serious offenders, one step below internal exile or a labor camp. Chicha’s insistence that he’s «never been a rat» and remains a «righteous thief, within limits» is his way of drawing a hard line even inside a conversation about breaking a supernatural contract.