What is the deal with those Russian Stones CDs?

[Crummy Old Label Avatar]

A friend of mine just picked up almost all of the Russian bootleg Stones 60s catalog at a flea market ($2 each - not bad). Incredible packaging (Abkco should've hired the Russian bootlegger as art director for their rereleases) and some very interesting outtakes in great sound quality. I only heard a few things this afternoon, but what I heard sounded quite impressive.

Does anyone have any idea what these are sourced from? The outtake and live material does not sound as if it's sourced from vinyl boots or the like, and the album material on these sounds quite good as well.

I'm just curious if anyone has a clue what the hell the deal with these is.

Thanks.

[Xenu]

Depends which series it is. The most recent iteration of Stones piratedom I've noticed is yet another series by CD Maximum, this one with clear trays. The tracklistings seem to be the albums, plus various outtakes...i.e. Aftermath has the Mother backing track, Sad Day, et cetera.

They're sourced, in all likelyhood, from official releases and bootlegs. Some may or may not be clones of those German digipaks from a few years back.