Weekend Deviation – A Siberian Education

One of the weirdest books I’ve read in a long time is Nikolai Lilin’s Siberian Education. It’s basically a book about a group of people who don’t really exist living in a place that doesn’t really exist – except they do and it does. The people are the Siberian Urkas who are essentially bandits and for centuries attacked mercantile transport and the government forces who defended it. The place is the republic of Transnistria, pretty much unrecognized by anyone and sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine. The Urka culture is one of those slowing dying hidden cultures of Europe – like Romany – that outsiders have little understanding of and where anthropologists are not really welcomed.  Bandits the Urkas may be but they are so much more than  just another shabby bunch of post-Soviet crims and washed up Zeks – the Urkas have codes, traditions, standards – bizarre perhaps to most of us but interesting all the same.

I’m not quite sure what to make of Lilin – Urka bandit, Pushkin lover (as apparently all good Urka’s are (literary bandits!) and ex-Russian Special Forces in Chechnya as well as now being an Italian residing writer. Could all be too good to be true but the book’s a gripping read. Blurb below as per usual and here’s a link to Irvine Welsh’s review in The Guardian.

Set in a small and tight-knit community of ‘honest criminals’ in a remote part of the former Soviet Union, this is a tale of an extreme childhood – exotic, violent and completely unique. Nicolai Lilin gained his ‘education’ as a member of the Siberian Urkas – a self-contained criminal fraternity – in a forgotten corner of Eastern Europe. It was a remarkable upbringing, defined by an elaborate set of riuals and strict codes of honour. The community had a deep distrust of outsiders – especially the police and state authorities – and split itself into ‘honest’ and ‘dishonest’ criminals. Even their youngest children were taught to understand violence and when it was appropriate to use it. By the age of six, Nicolai Lilin is given his first ‘pike knife’ by an uncle and by the age of twelve he has been convicted of attempted murder. A huge bestseller in Lilin’s current home country, Italy, Siberian Education is an extraordinary snapshot of a violent world.

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