Siberian Education

Siberian Education (2009) by Nicolai Lilin. It was followed by a sequel, Free Fall: A Sniper's Story from Chechnya.

64 quotes
0 likes
0Verified
16 days agoLast Quote

Timeline

First Quote Added

April 10, 2026

Latest Quote Added

April 10, 2026

All Quotes by This Author

"We Siberians had made friends with the Armenian family. We had known the Armenians from way back; there was a good relationship between our communities and we resembled each other in many ways. We had made a pact with them: if there was ever any serious trouble we would support each other. In this way the power of our communities had increased. We celebrated our birthdays and other special days together; sometimes we even shared our parcels from home. If anyone needed something urgently, such as medicine, or ink for tattoos, we would help each other without hesitation. We were good friends with the Armenians, and also with the Belarusians, who were good people, and with the boys who came from the Don, from the Cossack community: they were rather militaristic but good-hearted, and all were very brave. We had problems with the Ukrainians, though: some of them were nationalistic and hated Russians, and for some strange reason even those who didn’t share those sentiments ended up supporting them. And our relationship with the Ukrainians deteriorated markedly after a Siberian from another cell killed one of them. A real hatred grew up between our communities. We kept well away from the people from Georgia; they were all supporters of Black Seed. Each of them was desperate to become an Authority, invented countless ways of making others respect him, and conducted a kind of criminal electoral campaign to win votes. The Georgians I met in that jail knew nothing about true friendship or brotherhood; they lived together while hating each other and trying to cheat everyone else and make them their slaves, by exploiting the criminal laws and changing them to suit their own purposes. Only by doing this did they have any hope of becoming chiefs, and of gaining the respect of the adult criminals of the Black Seed caste."

- Siberian Education

• 0 likes• autobiographical-novels• italian-novels•
"An insult is regarded by all communities as an error typical of people who are weak and unintelligent, lacking in criminal dignity. To us Siberians, any kind of insult is a crime; in other communities some distinctions can be made, but in general an insult is the quickest route to the blade of a knife. An insult to an individual may be ‘approved’: that is to say, if I have insulted someone and they take me before an old Authority, I will have to explain to him the reason why I did it, and he will decide how I will be punished. Punishment is inflicted in any case, but if the insult is approved, they don’t kill me or ‘lower’ me; I remain myself and get off with a warning. An insult is approved if you utter it for personal reasons and in a non-serious form: for example, if you call someone who has damaged your property an ‘arsehole’. If, however, you offended the name of his mother, they are quite likely to kill you. Insults are forgiven if they are uttered in a state of rage or desperation, when a person is blinded by deep grief – for example, if his mother or father or a close friend dies. In such cases the question of justice is not even mentioned; he is judged to have been ‘beside himself’, and there the matter ends. Insults are not approved, however, in a quarrel that arises from gambling or criminal activities, or in matters of the heart, or in relations between friends: in all these cases the use of swear-words and offensive phrases usually means certain death. But the most serious insult of all is that known as baklanka, when a group or a whole community is insulted. No explanations are accepted: you deserve either death or ‘lowering’ – a permanent transfer to the community of the lowered, the tainted, like the people who lived in the district of Bam. So from childhood onwards we learned to ‘filter words’, and always to keep a check on what came out of our mouths, so as not to make a mistake, even unwittingly. For according to the Siberian rule, a word that has flown can never return."

- Siberian Education

• 0 likes• autobiographical-novels• italian-novels•
"The pike, as the traditional weapon of the Siberian criminals is called, is a flick-knife with a long, thin blade, and is connected with many old customs and ceremonies of our community. A pike cannot be bought. It has to be earned. Any young criminal can be given a pike by an adult criminal, as long as he is not a relative. Once it has been given, the pike becomes a kind of personal cult symbol, like the cross in the Christian community. The pike also has magic powers, lots of them. When someone is ill, and especially when he is suffering extreme pain, they put an open pike under his mattress, with the blade sticking out, so that, according to the beliefs, the blade cuts the pain and absorbs it like a sponge. What's more, when an enemy is struck by that blade, the pain collected inside it flows out into the wound, making him suffer even more. The umbilical cord of newborn babies is cut with a pike, which must first have been left open overnight in a place where cats sleep. To seal important pacts between two people – truces, friendships or brotherhoods – both criminals cut their hands with the same pike, which is then kept by a third person, who is a kind of witness to their pact: if either of them betrays the agreement he will be killed with that knife. When a criminal dies, his pike is broken by one of his friends. One part, the blade, is put in his grave, usually under the dead man's head, while the haft is preserved by his closest relatives. When it is necessary to communicate with the dead man, to ask for advice or a miracle, the relatives take out the haft and put it in the red corner, below the icons. In this way the dead man becomes a kind of bridge between the living and God. A pike keeps its powers only if it is in the hands of a Siberian criminal who uses it respecting the rules of the criminal community. If an unworthy person takes possession of a knife that does not belong to him, it will bring him bad luck – hence our idiom, 'to ruin something as a pike ruins a bad master'. When a criminal is in danger, his pike can warn him in many ways: the blade may suddenly open of its own accord, or become hot, or vibrate. Some think it can even emit a whistle. If a pike is broken, it means that somewhere there is a dead person who cannot find peace, so offerings are made to the icon, or dead relatives and friends are remembered in prayers, visits are made to graveyards, and the dead are remembered by talking about them in the family and telling stories about them, especially to children."

- Siberian Education

• 0 likes• autobiographical-novels• italian-novels•
"Grandfather Kuzya hated everything American because, like all Siberian criminals, he opposed what represented power in the world. If he heard anyone talk about people who had fled to America, of many Jews who had made a mass exodus from the USSR in the 1980s, he would say in amazement: 'Why on earth does everyone go to America, saying they seek freedom? Our ancestors took refuge in the woods, in Siberia, they didn't go to America. And besides, why flee from the Soviet regime, only to end up in the American one? It would be like a bird that had escaped from its cage going voluntarily to live in another cage...' For these reasons, in Low River it was forbidden to use anything American. The American cars which circulated freely all over town couldn't enter our district, and items of clothing, domestic appliances and all other objects that were 'made in the USA' were banned. For me personally this rule was rather painful, since I was very keen on jeans but I couldn't wear them. I secretly listened to American music – I liked blues, rock and heavy metal, but I was taking a big risk in keeping the records and cassettes in the house. And when my father carried out an inspection of my hiding places and finally found them, all hell would break loose. He would beat me and make me break all the records with my own hands in front of him and my grandfather, and then every evening for a week I would be made to play Russian tunes on the accordion for an hour and sing Russian folk or criminal songs. I wasn't attracted by American politics, only by the music and by the books of some writers. Once, choosing the right moment, I tried to explain this to Grandfather Kuzya. I hoped that he would be able to intercede and give me permission to listen to the music and read American books without having to hide from my family. He looked at me as if I had betrayed him and said: 'Son, do you know why when there's an outbreak of the plague people burn everything that belonged to the victims?' I shook my head. But I already imagined where this was leading. He gave a sad sigh and concluded: 'The contagion, Nikolay, the contagion.' And so, since everything American was forbidden, just as it was forbidden to flaunt wealth and power through material things, the people of our district dressed very humbly. We boys were in a terrible state as far as clothing was concerned, but we were proud of it. We wore like trophies our fathers' or elder brothers' old shoes, and their unfashionable clothes, which were meant to emphasize Siberian humility and simplicity."

- Siberian Education

• 0 likes• autobiographical-novels• italian-novels•
"As a young man Grandfather Kuzya had belonged to a gang of Urkas led by a famous criminal called 'Cross', a man of old Siberian faith who had opposed first the power of the tsar and later that of the communists. In Siberia, Grandfather Kuzya explained to me, no criminal ever supported a political force; everybody lived only following their own laws and fighting any government power. Siberia has always been coveted by the Russians because it is a land that is very rich in natural resources. Besides the fur-bearing animals, which in Russia are considered a national treasure, Siberia had large amounts of gold, diamonds and coal; later oil and gas were discovered too. All governments have tried to exploit the region as much as possible – of course without the slightest regard for the population. The Russians would arrive, said Grandfather Kuzya, build their towns in the middle of the woods, dig up the land, and carry off its treasures on their trains and ships. The Siberian criminals, expert robbers whose ancestors had for centuries attacked the mercantile caravans coming from China and India, had had no difficulty in attacking the Russian ones too. In those days the Urkas had a particular philosophy, a world-view, which they called the 'Great Pact'. It was a plan which made it possible to maintain a concerted resistance against the government. According to the old criminal law, each individual gang could carry out no more than one robbery every six months: in this way the quality of criminal activity was kept at a high level, because it is clear that if a group has only one chance to rob a caravan, it must prepare well and take no risks, avoiding any false moves. People were keen to organize the job well, otherwise they would have to go half a year without eating. The Great Pact eliminated this rule, allowing the gangs to carry out robberies continually, because the aim was not that of self-enrichment, but of driving the Russian invaders out of Siberia. Old criminals joined forces with the new ones, forming very large gangs. The most famous were those of Angel, Tiger and Tayga."

- Siberian Education

• 0 likes• autobiographical-novels• italian-novels•