Siberian Education
Nicolai Lilin
A riveting true story about growing up in a criminal underworld.
By age six Nicolai Lilin had been given his first knife. By age twelve he had been convicted of attempted murder.
Lilin was a member of the Siberian Urkas—a tight-knit fraternity with strict codes of honour. In this community crime was a given; the only question was whether the criminal was honest or dishonest. Transgressions brought severe retribution. Weapons were treated almost as religious icons.
Extreme, sometimes disturbing, Siberian Education is an insider’s account of a unique and hidden world.
‘Terrifying, fascinating, horrific and violent… an eye-opening and gripping account.’
—Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Young Stalin
‘A fascinating and very readable account of life in the Siberian criminal underground.’
RUST Y. YOUNG, AUTHOR OF MARCHING POWDER
Nicolai Lilin
SIBERIAN EDUCATION
Translated from the Italian by Jonathan Hunt
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This memoir is based on the author’s own experiences. Names have been changed, characters combined and events compressed. Certain episodes are imaginative recreation, and those episodes are not intended to portray actual events.
SIBERIAN EDUCATION
‘Some enjoy life, some suffer it; we fight it.’
Old saying of the Siberian Urkas
I know it shouldn’t be done, but I’m tempted to start from the end.
For example, from the day we ran through the rooms of a ruined building, firing at the enemy from such close range we could almost touch them with our hands.
We were exhausted. The paratroopers worked in shifts, but we saboteurs hadn’t slept for three days. We went on like the waves of the sea, so as not to give the enemy the chance to rest, carry out manoeuvres or organize their defences. We were always fighting, always.
That day I ended up on the top floor of the building with Shoe, trying to eliminate the last heavy machinegun. We threw two hand grenades.
In the dust that was falling from the roof we couldn’t see a thing, and we found ourselves face to face with four enemies who like us were wandering like blind kittens through the grey, dirty cloud, which reeked of debris and burnt explosive.
I had never shot anyone at such close quarters in all my time in Chechnya.
Meanwhile, on the first floor our Captain had taken a prisoner and killed eight enemies, all by himself.
When I came out with Shoe I was completely dazed. Captain Nosov was asking Moscow to keep an eye on the Arab prisoner, while he, Ladle and Zenith went to check out the cellar.
I sat on the stairs next to Moscow, opposite the frightened prisoner, who kept trying to communicate something. Moscow wasn’t listening to him, he was sleepy and tired, as we all were. As soon as the Captain turned his back, Moscow pulled out his pistol – an Austrian Glock, one of his trophies – and, with an arrogant leer, shot the prisoner in the head and chest.
The Captain turned round, and looked at him pityingly without saying a word.
Moscow closed his eyes as he sat down beside the dead man, overcome with exhaustion.
Looking at all of us as if he were meeting us for the first time, the Captain said:
‘This is too much. Everyone into the cars! We’re going for a rest, behind the lines.’
One after another, like zombies, we trooped off towards our vehicles. My head was so heavy I was sure that if I stopped it would explode.
We went back behind the lines, into the area controlled and defended by our infantry. We fell asleep instantly; I didn’t even have time to take off my jacket and ammunition belt before I fell into the darkness, like a dead man.
Soon afterwards Moscow woke me by hammering the butt of his Kalashnikov on my jacket, at chest level. Slowly and reluctantly I opened my eyes and looked around; I struggled to remember where I was. I couldn’t get things into focus.
Moscow’s face looked tired; he was chewing a piece of bread. Outside it was dark; it was impossible to tell what time it was. I looked at my watch but couldn’t see the digits; everything was hazy.
‘What’s happening? How long have we slept?’ I asked Moscow in a weary voice.
‘We haven’t slept at all, brother… And I think we’re going to have to stay awake quite a while longer.’
I clasped my face between my hands, trying to muster the strength to stand up and arrange my thoughts. I needed to sleep, I was exhausted. My trousers were dirty and wet, my jacket smelled of sweat and fresh earth. I was worn out.
Moscow went to wake the others:
‘Come on, lads, we’re leaving immediately… We’re needed.’
They were all in despair; they didn’t want to get up. But, grumbling and cursing, they struggled to their feet.
Captain Nosov was pacing around with the handset to his ear, and an infantryman was following him around like a pet dog, with the field radio in his rucksack. The Captain was angry; he kept repeating to somebody or other, over the radio, that it was the first break we’d taken in three days, and that we were at the end of our tether. It was all in vain, because eventually Nosov said, in a clipped tone:
‘Yes, Comrade Colonel! Confirmed! Order received!’
They were sending us back to the front line.
I didn’t even want to think about it.
I went over to a metal tank full of water. I dipped my hands into it: the water was very cool; it made me shiver slightly. I put my whole head into the drum, right under the water, and kept it there for a while, holding my breath.
I opened my eyes inside the tank and saw complete darkness. Alarmed, I jerked my head out, gasping for air.
The darkness I’d seen in the tank had shocked me. Death might be just like that, I thought: dark and airless.
I leaned over the tank and watched, shimmering on the water, the reflection of my face, and of my life up to that moment.
THE EIGHT-GORED HAT AND THE FLICK-KNIFE
In Transnistria February is the coldest month of the year. The wind blows hard, the air becomes keen and stings your face. On the street people wrap themselves up like mummies; the children look like plump little dolls, bundled up in countless layers of clothes, with scarves up to their eyes.
It usually snows a lot; the days are short and darkness descends very early.
That was the month when I was born. Early, coming out feet first; I was so weak that in ancient Sparta I would undoubtedly have been left to die because of my physical condition. Instead they put me in an incubator.
A kindly nurse told my mother she would have to get used to the idea that I wouldn’t live long. My mother cried, expressing her milk with a breast pump to take to me in the incubator. It can’t have been a happy time for her.
From my birth onwards, perhaps out of habit, I continued to be a source of worry and distress to my parents (or rather to my mother, because my father didn’t really care about anything: he went on with his life as a criminal, robbing banks and spending a lot of time in prison). I’ve lost count of the number of scrapes I got into when I was small. But it was natural: I grew up in a rough district – the place where the criminals expelled from Siberia were re-settled in the 1930s. My life was there, in Bender, with the criminals, and the people of our villainous district were like one big family.
When I was small I didn’t care about toys. What I liked doing when I was four or five was prowling round the house to see if my grandfather or my uncle were taking their weapons apart to clean them. They were constantly doing it, with the utmost care and devotion. My uncle used to say weapons were like women – if you didn’t caress them enough they’d grow st
iff and betray you.
The weapons in our house, as in all Siberian houses, were kept in particular places. The so-called ‘personal’ guns – the ones Siberian criminals carry around with them and use every day – are placed in the ‘red corner’, where the family icons hang on the walls, along with the photographs of relatives who have died or are serving prison sentences. Below the icons and the photographs there is a shelf, draped with a piece of red cloth, on which there are usually about a dozen Siberian crucifixes. Whenever a criminal enters the house he goes straight to the red corner, pulls out his gun and puts it on the shelf, then crosses himself and places a crucifix over the gun. This is an ancient tradition which ensures that weapons are never used in a Siberian house: if they were, the house could never be lived in again. The crucifix acts as a kind of seal, which can only be removed when the criminal leaves the house.
The personal guns, which are called ‘lovers’, ‘aunts’, ‘trunks’ or ‘ropes’, don’t usually have any deeper meaning; they are seen as just weapons, nothing more. They are not cult objects, in the way that the ‘pike’, the traditional knife, is. The gun is simply a tool of the trade.
In addition to personal guns, there are other kinds of weapon that are kept around the house. The weapons of Siberian criminals fall into two broad categories: ‘honest’ ones and ‘sinful’ ones. The ‘honest’ weapons are those that are used only for hunting in the woods. According to Siberian morality, hunting is a purification ritual, which enables a person to return to the state of primal innocence in which God created man. Siberians never hunt for pleasure, but only to satisfy their hunger, and only when they go into the dense woods of their homeland, the Tayga. Never in places where food can be obtained without killing wild animals. If they are out in the woods for a week the Siberians will usually kill only one boar; for the rest of the time they just walk. In hunting there is no place for self-interest, only for survival. This doctrine influences the entire Siberian criminal law, forming a moral basis which prescribes humility and simplicity in the actions of each individual criminal, and respect for the freedom of every living thing.
The ‘honest’ weapons used for hunting are kept in a special area of the house, called the ‘altar’, along with the decorated hunting belts of the masters of the house and their forefathers. There are always hunting knives hanging from the belts, and bags containing various talismans and objects of pagan magic.
The ‘sinful’ weapons are those that are used for criminal purposes. These weapons are usually kept in the cellar and in various hiding places scattered around the yard. Every sinful weapon is engraved with the image of a cross or a patron saint, and has been ‘baptized’ in a Siberian church.
Kalashnikov assault rifles are the Siberians’ favourites. In criminal slang each model has a name; no one uses abbreviations or numbers to indicate the model and calibre or the type of ammunition it requires. For example, the old 7.62 mm AK-47 is called a ‘saw’, and its ammunition ‘heads’. The more recent 5.45 mm AKS with the folding butt is called a ‘telescope’, and its ammunition ‘chips’. There are also names for the different types of cartridge: the bottom-heavy ones with black tips are called ‘fat ones’; the armour-piercing ones with white tips, ‘nails’; the explosive ones with red and white tips, ‘sparks’.
The same goes for the other weapons: precision rifles are called ‘fishing rods’, or ‘scythes’. If they have a built-in silencer on the barrel, they are called ‘whips’. Silencers are called ‘boots’, ‘terminals’ or ‘woodcocks’.
According to tradition, an honest weapon and a sinful one cannot remain in the same room, otherwise the honest weapon is forever contaminated, and can never be used again, because its use would bring bad luck on the whole family. In this case the gun must be eliminated with a special ritual. It is buried in the ground, wrapped in a sheet on which a mother has given birth. According to Siberian beliefs, everything connected with childbirth is charged with positive energy, because every newborn child is pure and does not know sin. So the powers of purity are a kind of seal against misfortune. On the spot where a contaminated weapon has been buried it is usual to plant a tree, so that if the ‘curse’ strikes, it will destroy the tree and not spread to anything else.
In my parents’ house there were weapons everywhere; my grandfather had a whole room full of honest weapons: rifles of various calibres and makes, numerous knives and various kinds of ammunition. I could only go into that room if I was accompanied by an adult, and when I did I tried to stay there as long as possible. I would hold the weapons, study their details, ask hundreds of questions, until they would stop me, saying:
‘That’s enough questions! Just wait a while. When you grow up you’ll be able to try them out for yourself…’
Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to grow up.
I would watch spellbound as my grandfather and my uncle handled the weapons, and when I touched them they seemed to me like living creatures.
Grandfather would often call me and sit me down in front of him; then he would lay on the table an old Tokarev – a handsome, powerful pistol, which seemed to me more fascinating than all the weapons in existence.
‘Well? Do you see this?’ he would say. ‘This is no ordinary gun. It’s magic. If a cop comes near, it’ll shoot him of its own accord, without you pulling the trigger…’
I really believed in the powers of that pistol, and once, when the police arrived at our house to carry out a raid, I did a very stupid thing.
That day my father had returned from a long stay in central Russia, where he had robbed a number of security vans. After supper, to which my whole family and a few close friends had come, the men were sitting at the table, talking and discussing various criminal matters, and the women were in the kitchen, washing the dishes, singing Siberian songs and laughing together as they swapped stories from the past. I was sitting next to my grandfather on the bench, with a cup of hot tea in my hand, listening to what the grownups were saying. Unlike other communities, the Siberians respect children, and will talk freely about any subject in front of them, without creating an air of mystery or prohibition.
Suddenly I heard the women screaming, and then a lot of angry voices: within seconds the house was full of armed police, their faces covered, pointing Kalashnikovs at us. One of them came over to my grandfather, pushed the rifle in his face and shouted furiously, the tension in his voice unmistakable:
‘What are you looking at, you old fool? I told you to keep your eyes on the floor!’
I wasn’t in the least scared. None of those men frightened me – the fact of being with my whole family made me feel stronger. But the tone in which the man had addressed my grandfather had angered me. After a short pause, my grandfather, not looking the policeman in the eye but holding his head erect, called out to my grandmother:
‘Svetlana! Svetlana! Come in here, darling! I want you to pass on a few words to this scum!’
According to the rules of criminal behaviour, Siberian men cannot communicate with policemen. It is forbidden to address them, answer their questions or establish any relationship with them. The criminal must behave as if the police were not there, and use the mediation of a female relative, or friend of the family, provided she is of Siberian origin. The criminal tells the woman what he wants to say to the policeman in the criminal language, and she repeats his words in Russian, even though the policeman can hear what he says perfectly well, since he is standing there in front of him. Then, when the policeman replies, the woman turns round and translates his words into the criminal language. The criminal must not look the policeman in the face, and if he refers to him in the course of his speech he must use derogatory words like ‘filth’, ‘dog’, ‘rabbit’, ‘rat’, ‘bastard’, ‘abortion’, etc.
That evening the oldest person in the room was my grandfather, so according to the rules of criminal behaviour the right to communicate was his; the others had to keep silent, and if they wanted to say anything they would have to ask h
is permission. My grandfather was well known for his skill in dealing with tense situations.
My grandmother came in from the kitchen, with a coloured duster in her hand. She was followed by my mother, who was looking extremely worried.
‘My dear wife – God bless you – please tell this piece of filth that for as long as I’m alive no one is going to point weapons at my face or those of my friends in my house… Ask him what he wants, and tell him to order his men to lower their guns for the love of Christ before somebody gets hurt.’
My grandmother started repeating what my grandfather had said to the policeman, and although the man nodded to indicate that he had heard every word, she went on, following the tradition through to the end. There was something false, something theatrical about all this, but it was a scene that had to be acted out; it was a question of criminal dignity.
‘Everyone on the floor, face down. We have a warrant for the arrest of…’ The policeman didn’t manage to finish his sentence, because my grandfather, with a broad and slightly malicious smile – which in fact was the way he always smiled – interrupted him, addressing my grandmother:
‘By the passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who died and rose again for us sinners! Svetlana, my love, ask this stupid cop if she and her friends are from Japan.’
My grandfather was humiliating the police by speaking about them as if they were women. All the other criminals laughed. Meanwhile my grandfather went on:
‘They don’t look Japanese to me, so they can’t be kamikazes… Why, then, do they come armed into the heart of Low River, into the home of an honest criminal, while he is sharing a few moments of happiness with other good people?’
My grandfather’s speech was turning into what the criminals call ‘song’ – that extreme form of communication with policemen where a criminal speaks as if he were thinking out loud, talking to himself. He was merely expressing his own thoughts, not deigning to answer questions or establish any contact. That is the normal procedure when someone wants to indicate to policemen that what he is saying is the only truth, that there is no room for doubt.
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