Dantsig Sergeevich Baldaev (Данциг Сергеевич Балдаев, 1925–2005) was a Russian Buryat soldier, prison officer, folklorist, illustrator, and author of books on forensic science.
He is known for researching the symbolic language of prison tattoos used by Russia's underworld of career criminals for nearly half a century.
In 1935 Dantsig's mother died, and in 1938 his father Sergey was branded an "enemy of the people" and arrested by the NKVD.
Because his father had once been denounced, Dantsig was relegated to "menial jobs" for the MVD even after the downfall of the NKVD in the early 1950s.
Dantsig made many illustrations of the atrocities and sadistic torture endemic to the Gulag network.