Siberian Education is a memoir of a young criminal.

Nikolaj grew up in Bender, Moldova, during the last years of the USSR and the first years after its collapse. That city featured several quarters run by criminal communities, the author's own being one consisting of Siberian expatriates, transplanted by Stalin all the way across the USSR for reasons unknown.

Apparently, there are essentially two things that define a Siberian criminal community: their strong sense of community spirit and tradition, particularly in regards with their Orthodox faith, and their fierce resistance against and hatred of state authority, be it a communist one or a new Russian capitalist one, and everyone who represents it. Especially police officers, of course.

Such a community has an abundance of rules and traditions for any situation an honest criminal can find himself in. He must master the criminal jargon, which is apparently a rather poetic and lyrical way of greeting other criminals, showing respect and talking indirectly about the subject matter at hand. Every major milestone along a criminal's life path is subject to traditional ceremony and appeals to a higher power. Even such a seemingly simple thing as a child criminal getting a slingshot might require getting permission from the elders and must be done in strict accordance with the rules of the Siberian criminal community.

Lilin is a good storyteller, this is a fast, although a very discomforting read. Violence and senseless brutality are everywhere, but especially in the chapter describing the juvenile detention center that Lilin is incarcerated in for a couple of months as a teenager. Consider yourself forewarned, that part is downright sickening, as death and rape are a daily occurrence.

One thing I found interesting at first, but later it got weary, is a sort of rambling, stream of consciousness mode of storytelling. The author would start describing an event, then half way through switch to a life story of a criminal we meet during that event, then he would think of another story and tell it even though it is at best tangentially related to the first one, before eventually returning to the original story and completing it.

I would also have liked to have seen a bit more introspection about his life as a criminal. Don't get me wrong, the fact that he does no moral pontification on rights and wrongs of such a life during the storytelling is something I consider a plus, because you get a rawer, less obscured picture that way, unburdened by society's norm. It is also completely natural that as a child he did not even consider such matters. It was how he was raised and where he grew up. But later on, when touching on his life as a young adult, it would have been a welcome addition, since it is obvious he did feel something was wrong and decided to go abroad for education, apparently attempting to abandon such life.

Read this in Slovene, titled Sibirska vzgoja. ( )