By the age of six,Nicolai Lilin had been given his first'pike knife'by an uncle,and by the age of twelve,he had been convicted of attempted murder...Nicolai Lilin gained his'education'as a member of the Siberian Urkas - a small and tight-knit community of'honest criminals'in a forgotten corner of Eastern Europe...Siberian Education is his tale of an extreme childhood - exotic,violent and completely unique.
Publisher: Canongate BooksISBN: 9781847679338Number of pages: 464Weight: 308 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 28 mmEdition: Main
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Lilin's astonishing account of his life takes you into some very strange worlds; frightening,violent and yet with spirited moments of redemption which both offer hope and keep you reading . . .a breath-taking memoir.Terrifying,fascinating,horrific and violent - Lilin's memoir is an eye-opening and gripping account of a childhood spent in the brutal Siberian underworld.Force yourself to forget about categories of good and evil,you have to just be there and read...produces a thrill of pleasure that is hard to forget.Lilin's tale pulls no punches...a highly recommended account.Nicolai Lilin's Siberian Education (Norton) paints a phantasmagorical picture of Transnistria,a former Soviet region where a subculture of "honest criminals" has long flourished. Lilin writes of this ritualized,xenophobic,gun-and-cross-toting milieu,"Our philosophy of life has a close relation to death; children are taught that taking someone else's life or dying are perfectly acceptable things,if there is a good reason.With its exhaustive descriptions of ritual and tradition,Siberian Education at times resembles a work of cultural anthropology...Lilin has constructed Siberian Education as a Russian nesting doll,with stories unfolding inside of other stories,which yield yet more stories.
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