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Nicolai Lilin

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The West is the cradle of the fucking Anglo-Saxon colonialists, profiteers, bankers and warmongers. The world now no longer believes in the bullshit of Western democracy.

Nicolai Lilin (born 12 February, 1980) is an Italian-Moldovan writer. His first novel, Siberian Education, was adapted into a 2013 film directed by Gabriele Salvatores. He has since attracted attention for spreading Russian propaganda throughout the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Quotes

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  • The first person I killed was a thirty-year-old gypsy who was dealing heroin in my neighborhood. I was fourteen, I tried to fight him and make him leave, but he beat me up. So I went to my grandfather and told him everything; he loaded a revolver, gave it to me and told me to shoot him in the knees. I shot him in the knees with the first shot but the second one went wrong and I hit his liver and he died. It was a war and my father did much worse. He was one of those who carried out reprisals, he suffered three very serious attacks, in one of them I was also in the car when they shot at us. A real war. Then my father had to leave the country because the war was lost. Corruption and the power of traffickers and drugs won. In fact he joined the police, politics, corrupt power and our country was occupied by these people. My mother, finding herself in this situation, married to a man who for years had opposed this system, had to flee because too often corrupt policemen came to search and threaten us, to know where my father was hiding, where his money was. I myself was taken into the woods several times, they pointed a gun at my head to try to get information. Then I also went away and had my experiences.
    • La prima persona che ho ucciso era un trentenne zingaro che spacciava eroina nel mio quartiere. Io avevo quattordici anni, ho cercato di contrastarlo e fargli lasciare il quartiere ma lui mi ha picchiato. Allora sono andato da mio nonno e gli ho raccontato tutto; lui mi ha caricato un revolver, me lo ha dato e mi ha detto di sparargli alle ginocchia. Il primo colpo l'ho sparato alle ginocchia ma il secondo è andato male e gli ho preso il fegato e lui è morto. Era una guerra e mio padre faceva cose ben peggiori. Faceva parte di quelli che facevano rappresaglie, ha subito tre attentati pesantissimi, in uno c'ero anch'io in macchina quando ci hanno sparato addosso. Una vera e propria guerra. Poi mio padre è dovuto andar via dal paese perché la guerra è stata persa, la corruzione e il potere dei trafficanti e della droga ha vinto. Infatti si è unito alla polizia, alla politica, al potere corrotto e il nostro paese è stato occupato da questa gente. Mia madre trovandosi in questa situazione, sposata ad un uomo che per anni si è opposto a questo sistema, è dovuta fuggire perché troppo spesso venivano poliziotti corrotti per le perquisizioni, a minacciarci per sapere dove mio padre si nascondeva, dove erano i suoi soldi. Io stesso più volte sono stato portato nel bosco, mi hanno puntato una pistola alla testa per cercare di avere informazioni. Poi sono andato via anch'io e ho fatto le mie esperienze.
    • From an interview with Alessandra Farinola (n.d.), "Intervista a Nicolai Lilin", Mangialibri.com

2009

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  • The Siberian community in which I grew up came from a much older one that had already developed a system of self-control and was opposed to any form of power. Not only socialism, they opposed the Tsar's regime and its slavery. [...] By the late 1980s, I already knew that the community was dying. When I started writing I realized that tradition had helped them survive, but it couldn't save them.
    • [...] la comunità siberiana in cui sono cresciuto proveniva da una molto più antica che aveva già sviluppato un sistema di autocontrollo e che si opponeva a qualsiasi forma di potere. Non soltanto al socialismo, si opposero al regime dello Zar e alla sua schiavitù. [...] Alla fine degli anni Ottanta già sapevo che la comunità stava morendo. Quando ho iniziato a scrivere mi sono reso conto che la tradizione li ha aiutati a sopravvivere, ma non ha potuto salvarli.
    • From an interview with Giacomo Rosso (7 July 2009), "L'educazione siberiana di Nicolai Lilin", Cafebabel.com
  • There is no [Siberian] community anymore. Just me, my brother, and maybe some others. The problem is that there is nothing left in Siberia either. The core of this community was deported to Transnistria and did not survive there.
    • Non esiste più nessuna comunità. Sono io, mio fratello, e forse qualcun altro. Il problema è che anche in Siberia non è rimasto niente. Il nucleo di questa comunità è stato deportato in Transnistria e lì non è sopravvissuto.
    • From an interview with Giacomo Rosso (7 July 2009), "L'educazione siberiana di Nicolai Lilin", Cafebabel.com
  • The only thing for certain about Russia is that it will always be immersed in chaos. That's normal. It's its historical state.
    • L'unica cosa certa sulla Russia è che sarà sempre immersa nel caos. È normale. Questo è il suo stato storico.
    • From an interview with Giacomo Rosso (7 July 2009), "L'educazione siberiana di Nicolai Lilin", Cafebabel.com
  • There is not, nor will there ever be, a democratic government in Russia. Only a dictatorship can manage such a territory and all the populations that inhabit it.
    • In Russia non esiste, e non ci sarà mai, un governo democratico. Solo una dittatura può riuscire a gestire un territorio simile e tutte le popolazioni che lo abitano.
    • From an interview with Giacomo Rosso (7 July 2009), "L'educazione siberiana di Nicolai Lilin", Cafebabel.com
  • Actually, I now consider myself Italian in all respects. I have Italian citizenship, it would be wrong and incorrect to define myself as Russian, although I have recently received quite a few attacks from my former fellow Russian citizens.
    • Veramente ora mi considero italiano a tutti gli effetti. Ho la cittadinanza italiana, sarebbe sbagliato e scorretto definirmi russo. Anche se ultimamente ho ricevuto parecchi attacchi da parte dei miei ex concittadini russi.
    • From an interview with Giacomo Rosso (7 July 2009), "L'educazione siberiana di Nicolai Lilin", Cafebabel.com
  • I'm apolitical. I only write about what I've seen and experienced, but someone who still dreams of black communism would prefer me dead. And if I had stayed in the country, I already would be. That's why I, my wife, and my four-year-old daughter sleep with a Kalashnikov next to our pillow. [...] The Carabinieri are very worried, and my family even more so. On Facebook they have written terrible things to me, some absurd (a guy who claims to have paid hitmen from the Russian mafia to eliminate me) others more credible.
    • Sono apolitico, racconto solo quello che ho visto e vissuto, ma qualcuno che ancora sogna il comunismo nero mi preferirebbe morto. E se fossi rimasto al paese, già lo sarei. Ecco perché io, mia moglie e mia figlia di quattro anni dormiamo con il kalashnikov accanto al cuscino. [...] I Carabinieri sono molto preoccupati, e la mia famiglia di più. Su Facebook mi hanno scritto cose tremende, alcune assurde - un tizio che assicura di avere pagato sicari della mafia russa per eliminarmi - altre più credibili.
    • From an interview with Maurizio Crosetti (16 December 2009), "Lilin, vita blindata Faccio il tatuatore in clandestinità", Repubblica.it
  • I've never studied Italian, I learned it through contact with people, reading children's books and watching cartoons. But now I can even tackle Dante.

2013

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Western-style corruption has taken over, which is why Putin and Berlusconi are such friends, and even look like each other: both of them have undergone plastic surgery to look younger, but only Satan never ages. They are demons.
  • I am appalled by how things are going with Putin, his homophobic laws, the censorship, pedophilia used as a criminal means of earning money. Western-style corruption has taken over, which is why Putin and Berlusconi are such friends, and even look like each other: both of them have undergone plastic surgery to look younger, but only Satan never ages. They are demons. [...] I no longer have the stomach to live in such a country, where the only way out left is suicide. [...] We need a new revolution, of ideas, not weapons.
    • Sono rammaricato per come stanno andando le cose con Putin, le sue leggi omofobe, la censura, la pedofilia come sistema criminale per guadagnare denaro. La corruzione di stampo occidentale ha preso il sopravvento, per questo Berlusconi e Putin sono così amici, e si somigliano pure: ambedue oggetto di plastiche facciali per sembrare sempre giovani, ma solo Satana non invecchia mai. Sono demoni. [...] Non ho più fegato per vivere in un Paese così, dove l' unica soluzione ormaiè il suicidio. [...] Ci vuole una nuova rivoluzione. Non armata, ma delle idee.
    • From an interview with Fulvio Paloscia (30 October 2013), "Lilin, passeggiando tra i maestri russi. Ora serve una rivoluzione delle idee", Repubblica.it

2014

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  • I say what I know and what I know is certain. I have been involved in five wars, on the front lines, even though I am only 34 years old. When you Western boys were still messing around with some girl in the back seat of a car, I was already killing terrorists in Chechnya.
    • Dico ciò che so e ciò che so è sicuro. Io sono stato coinvolto in cinque guerre, in prima linea, nonostante abbia appena 34 anni. Quando voi ragazzi occidentali ancora vi dilettavate con qualche ragazza sui sedili posteriori di un'auto io ero già in Cecenia a uccidere i terroristi.
    • From an interview with Giovanni Mari (28 June 2014), "Maidan, «l'ultimo golpe degli Usa in fallimento», Il Secolo XIX
  • The history of the United States has been the history of a series of military interventions and aggressions, direct or indirect, real or fake wars. All to favor the private interests of private economic groups. A typical Anglo-Saxon style, moreover. They have not invented anything. They conquer territories, intervene in other people's affairs, only to grab money, allies, business.
    • La storia degli Stati Uniti è stata la storia di una serie di interventi e di aggressioni militari, diretti o indiretti, guerre vere o fasulle. Tutto per favorire gli interessi privati di gruppi economici privati. Un tipico stile anglosassone, per altro, non hanno inventato nulla. Conquistano territori, intervengono nei fatti altrui, solo per accaparrarsi soldi, alleati, affari.
    • From an interview with Giovanni Mari (28 June 2014), "Maidan, «l'ultimo golpe degli Usa in fallimento», Il Secolo XIX
  • Imagine if this vast continent, from Europe to Russia, to Kazakhstan, to India, to China, could unite. Imagine what a boom Italy could have, we could sell our fashion, our products, our books. We can do without the Americans and they can't stand it. So they have begun brutal operations, the same ones that today, however, they are no longer able to manage. They are losing everywhere, even here.
    • Pensate se questo vasto continente dall’Europa alla Russia al Kazakistan all’India alla Cina si potesse unire. Pensate l’Italia che boom potrebbe avere, venderemmo la nostra moda, i nostri prodotti, i nostri libri. Potremmo fare a meno degli americani e gli americani non possono sopportarlo. Così hanno cominciato brutali operazioni, le stesse che oggi, però, non sono più in grado di gestire. Stanno perdendo ovunque, anche qui.
    • From an interview with Giovanni Mari (28 June 2014), "Maidan, «l'ultimo golpe degli Usa in fallimento», Il Secolo XIX
  • Development is here, Russia is growing and Europe has every interest in making a deal with them, freeing itself from the yoke of American private multinationals. I speak as an Italian citizen, as an Italian patriot. Our economy, the real one, does not need this system that is now bankrupt. It must free itself from the grip of America and Brussels.
    • Lo sviluppo è qui, la Russia sta crescendo e l’Europa ha tutto l’interesse a fare un patto con loro, liberandosi dal giogo delle multinazionali private americane. Io parlo da cittadino italiano, da patriota italiano. La nostra economia, quella vera, non ha bisogno di questo sistema ormai al fallimento. Deve liberarsi dalla morsa americana e di Bruxelles.
    • From an interview with Giovanni Mari (28 June 2014), "Maidan, «l'ultimo golpe degli Usa in fallimento», Il Secolo XIX
  • To avoid further deaths and douse the fire of this civil war, Ukraine must cease to exist as a State. The government, law enforcement and the army which have stained themselves with crimes against humanity must be arrested and tried for their responsibility. NATO should be dissolved immediately, seeing as the bloc of nations comprising the Warsaw Pact hasn't existed for more than two decades. What's needed is a military intervention by the UN to disarm both sides involved in this war. The criminal Nazis of Kiev, their Washington collaborators and advisors should be brought before the International Court of Justice in Hague and judged with all the severity that the law allows. Only this way and only from that point on will true and coherent news start arriving from that scarred nation: only then will the world be able to breathe freely.
    • Per evitare altre morti e spegnere il fuoco di questa guerra civile, l'Ucraina deve smettere di esistere come Stato. Il governo, le forze dell'ordine e l'esercito che si sono macchiati di crimini contro l'umanità devono essere arrestati e processati in quanto responsabili. La NATO dovrebbe essere sciolta immediatamente, visto che il blocco dei paesi del Patto di Varsavia non esiste da più di due decenni. Servirebbe un intervento militare dell'ONU per disarmare le due parti coinvolte in questa guerra. I criminali nazisti di Kiev, i loro collaboratori e consiglieri di Washington dovrebbero essere portati davanti al tribunale internazionale dell'Aja ed essere giudicati con tutta la severità che la legge consente. Solo così e solo allora da quel paese martoriato cominceranno ad arrivare notizie vere, coerenti: solo allora il mondo potrà respirare liberamente.
    • From "L'Impero delle Balle", Espresso.repubblica.it (18 July 2014)

2016

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  • Atheism is a religion. Declaring that you don't believe in anything is like saying you believe in something. In this way, they are a group, a cult.
  • We are all brothers in that area and I wouldn't know how to shoot a Moldovan, because I love him: he's my brother.

2017

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  • This snake [tattoo] on my arm is the demon I have to tame every day. My mentor forcibly tattooed it on me when I was 14. I had stabbed a boy in the back. He was paralyzed for life, but I was left with the demon tattooed with the needle, almost in relief, to hurt me more. A stain that reminds me of the biggest mistake of my life.
    • Questo serpente al braccio è il demonio che devo domare ogni giorno. Me l'ha tatuato a forza il mio maestro quando avevo 14 anni. Avevo accoltellato un ragazzo alle spalle. Lui è rimasto paralizzato tutta la vita, a me è restato il demone tatuato con la bacchetta, quasi in rilievo, per farmi più male. Una macchia che mi ricorda il più grosso errore della mia vita.
    • From an interview with Giulia Santerini (27 July 2017), "Nicolai Lilin: "Ora vi educo con i tatuaggi siberiani"", Repubblica.it
  • What is a criminal? One who goes against justice? But what justice? Weren't the partisans and those who fought against communist regimes outlaws? For the Urkas, even Jesus was an honest criminal, they like it when the gospel says he came to bring the sword. He was a revolutionary.
    • Cos'è un criminale? Uno che va contro la giustizia? Ma quale giustizia? I partigiani e chi ha lottato contro i regimi comunisti non erano dei fuorilegge? Per gli Urca anche Gesù era un criminale onesto, a loro piace quando il vangelo dice che era venuto per portare la spada. Era un rivoluzionario.
    • From an interview with Giulia Santerini (27 July 2017), "Nicolai Lilin: "Ora vi educo con i tatuaggi siberiani"", Repubblica.it
  • Russia encompasses one sixth of the Earth's surface. An act of castration has been put in place against the Olympics, because the Olympic Games without Russia will be a joke. What's more, they will be a slap in the face to democracy, pluralism and the unity of all the peoples who find themselves in the Olympic spirit. [...] This is a pretext to make Russia appear as a rogue state in front of the entire civilized world, reawakening the ghosts of the Cold War. It is a way to humiliate Russia and its citizens. Among other things, I still do not understand on what tangible evidence this nonsense is based. To me it seems like an agenda, the arguments seem weak and we have not yet seen incontrovertible proof.
    • La Russia corrisponde a un sesto delle terre emerse, è stata messa in atto un’azione castrante nei confronti delle Olimpiadi perché i giochi olimpici senza la Russia saranno una barzelletta. Ma ancora di più saranno uno schiaffo alla democrazia, al pluralismo e all’unità di tutti i popoli che si ritrovano nello spirito olimpico. [...] Questo è un pretesto per far apparire la Russia, davanti a tutto il mondo civile, come un Paese canaglia, risvegliando i fantasmi della Guerra fredda. È un modo per umiliare la Russia e i suoi cittadini. Tra l’altro non capisco ancora su quali prove reali di basi questa fandonia. A me sembra una presa di posizione, le argomentazioni mi sembrano deboli e non abbiamo ancora visto prove incontrovertibili.
    • On Russia's exclusion from the 2018 Winter Olympics. From an interview with Gioco Pulito (11 December 2017), Russia esclusa dalle Olimpiadi, Nicolai Lilin: 'Uno schiaffo alla Democrazia, una vendetta dei potenti', Giocopulito.it
  • The champion of this club of oligarchs is Soros, who organizes revolutions and pushes global projects. In Italy we welcomed him with all honors, but perhaps it would have been better to treat him like the criminal he is. Here, people like him certainly have connections with the IOC and have all the tools to manipulate these people.
    • Il campione di questo club di oligarchi è Soros che organizza rivoluzioni e spinge progetti globali. In Italia l'abbiamo accolto con tutti gli onori ma forse sarebbe stato meglio trattarlo come un criminale quale è. Ecco persone come lui sicuramente hanno agganci con il CIO e hanno tutti gli strumenti per manipolare queste persone.
    • On Russia's exclusion from the 2018 Winter Olympics. From an interview with Gioco Pulito (11 December 2017), Russia esclusa dalle Olimpiadi, Nicolai Lilin: 'Uno schiaffo alla Democrazia, una vendetta dei potenti', Giocopulito.it
  • There is no independent government in Italy. It is a country politically and militarily occupied by "terrorists" of the single currency, of single thought and of globalism.

2020

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  • When I did military service in the sabotage squad and captured Islamic terrorists, we'd adopt a practice of preparation for interrogations which has always bothered me. [...] First of all we'd remove their trousers and underpants. Then we'd make a sort of gag with their socks which we'd stuff into their mouths. [...] I didn't get it at first. Then I asked our captain about it. [...] He explained that this practice had been studied by some psychologists, and that it served to deprive the prisoners of their own dignity, and therefore break them. So when we brought them before the interrogator, the terrorists would start talking immediately. It wasn't so hard to extract information from them at that point.
    • Quando ho fatto il servizio militare nelle squadre di sabotaggio e catturavo i terroristi islamici, adottavamo una pratica di preparazione agli interrogatori che mi ha sempre turbato. [...] Prima di tutto gli toglievamo i pantaloni e le mutande. Poi con le sue calze faceva una sorta di tappo che gli infilavamo in bocca. [...] All'inizio non riuscivo a capirne il senso. Poi lo ho chiesto al nostro capitano. [...] Mi ha spiegato che questa pratica era stato studiata da alcuni psicologi e che serviva a privare il prigioniero della propria dignità e, quindi, azzerarlo. Così, quando lo portavamo davanti a chi lo avrebbe interrogato, il terrorista si metteva subito a parlare. Non bisognava più far tanta fatica a cavargli fuori le informazioni.
    • From an interview with Andrea Indini (19 October 2020), "Coronavirus, Nicolai Lilin: 'Così hanno generato il terrore nel popolo'", Ilgiornale.it

2021

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  • The Soviet Union was unified through sacrifice and blood, millions of people died. My grandfather, even though he was anti-communist, always said that the greatest feat accomplished by the communists was to have united the Soviet Union and that we had to keep it united because it was our country. It was nice to be all together, to have one currency, one constitution, to be able to move freely...
    • L'Unione Sovietica fu unificata attraverso il sacrificio ed il sangue, sono morti milioni di persone. Mio nonno, anche se era anticomunista, diceva sempre che la più grande impresa compiuta dai comunisti fu quella di aver unito l’Unione Sovietica e che bisognava tenerla unita perché era il nostro Paese. Era bello stare tutti insieme, avere una valuta, una costituzione, potersi muovere liberamente...
    • From an interview with Fabrizio Rostelli (13 April 2021), "Educazione siberiana e socialista", Ilmanifesto.it
  • If you read Wikipedia it seems that the Moldovans tried to re-annex Transnistria which in the meantime had proclaimed itself independent. It is half true. First of all, the Moldovans did not want to leave the Soviet Union. They left because some corrupt politicians, paid by Western oligarchs, destroyed the USSR. An army of mercenaries from all over the world arrived here: Hungarians, Germans, people from the Baltic countries. If the war lasted only two months it is precisely because the majority of the Moldovan people were against it and did not want to invade us. The greatest number of victims occurred during the first few days, when people were simply massacred while they tried to return home in fear. The first resistance, the most consistent, was popular. We kids rode the streets on bicycles and collected ammunition, we took weapons and other useful things from the dead. We followed the movements of military vehicles and reported them to the adults. It also happened that we fired Kalashnikovs in firefights. At that time the people in my building lived in my house because we had water from the well and several supplies of canned food. In the apartments there was no electricity, nor gas, they also cut off the water in the whole city because the mercenaries had tried to poison it. There were also several elderly people who needed medicine; in our courtyard we had a small refugee camp.
    • Se leggi Wikipedia sembra che i moldavi tentarono di riannettere la Transnistria che nel frattempo si era proclamata indipendente. È una mezza verità. I moldavi prima di tutto non volevano uscire dall'Unione Sovietica, uscirono perché alcuni politici corrotti, pagati dagli oligarchi occidentali, sfasciarono l'URSS. Da noi arrivò un esercito di mercenari a pagamento provenienti da tutto il mondo: ungheresi, tedeschi, gente dei Paesi baltici. Se la guerra durò solo due mesi è proprio perché la gran parte del popolo moldavo era contraria e non voleva invaderci. Il numero più grande di vittime ci fu durante i primi giorni, quando la gente fu semplicemente massacrata mentre, spaventata, cercava di tornare a casa. La prima resistenza, quella più consistente, fu popolare. Noi ragazzini percorrevamo le strade con le biciclette e raccoglievamo munizioni, toglievamo ai morti le armi e altre cose utili. Seguivamo i movimenti dei mezzi militari e li comunicavamo ai grandi. Capitava anche di sparare con il kalashnikov in conflitti a fuoco. In quel periodo la gente del mio palazzo abitava a casa mia perché avevamo l'acqua del pozzo e diverse scorte di cibi in scatola. Negli appartamenti non c'era luce, né gas, staccarono anche l'acqua in tutta la città perché i mercenari avevano cercato di avvelenarla. C'erano poi diversi anziani che avevano bisogno di medicine; nel nostro cortile avevamo un piccolo lagher di rifugiati.
    • On the Transnistria War, from an interview with Fabrizio Rostelli (13 April 2021), "Educazione siberiana e socialista", Ilmanifesto.it
  • I've killed quite a few people in Chechnya who had American passports.
    • In Cecenia ho fatto fuori un po' di persone che avevano passaporti americani.
    • From an interview with Fabrizio Rostelli (13 April 2021), "Educazione siberiana e socialista", Ilmanifesto.it
  • Mine was a criminal family. My grandfather robbed banks and my father armored vans. During the war my grandfather was a sniper, like almost all Siberian hunters; he was in the same convoy that took the great Vasily Zaytsev to Stalingrad. I'm often told that I had a bad childhood. Perhaps it's true, but I liked it that way. That element got me closer to the adults and I felt responsible.
    • La mia era una famiglia criminale, mio nonno rapinava le banche e mio padre i furgoni blindati ed entrambi hanno avuto una discreta esperienza carceraria. In guerra mio nonno era stato un cecchino, come quasi tutti i cacciatori siberiani; era nello stesso convoglio che aveva portato il grande Vasilij Zajcev a Stalingrado. Spesso mi dicono che ho avuto una brutta infanzia, forse è vero ma a me piaceva così. Quell'elemento mi avvicinava ai grandi, mi sentivo responsabile.
    • From an interview with Fabrizio Rostelli (13 April 2021), "Educazione siberiana e socialista", Ilmanifesto.it
  • I am an internationalist and I want to break down borders. I do not understand why the Eurasian continent should not be united. This wall is wanted by those who consider Europe as a subject and consumer of their products, that is, the United States. If the League acts as a battering ram to break down this barrier, I am willing to vote for it. Once the wall is gone, I can stop and look at all the ethical issues. What else can I do?
    • Sono un internazionalista e voglio abbattere i confini, non capisco per quale motivo il continente euroasiatico non debba essere unito. Questo muro lo vuole chi considera l'Europa come suddita e consumatrice dei propri prodotti, cioè gli Stati Uniti. Se la Lega agisce da ariete per abbattere questa barriera sono disposto a votarla. Una volta che non c'è più il muro, posso soffermarmi a guardare tutte le questioni etiche. Che altro posso fare?
    • From an interview with Fabrizio Rostelli (13 April 2021), "Educazione siberiana e socialista", Ilmanifesto.it

2022

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  • It was like a concentration camp and I have bad memories because it was the first time I saw human beings lose everything, even dignity [...]. Thank God no one tried to hit me or put me down, there was no sexual violence towards me because our group stayed together, we made business with nobody and just tried to survive. I knew I never wanted to go back.
  • In war, I had no time for understanding. It’s really fast and you think only of your mission. If you start to think about morality, you will die, because you lose control. You can’t think about life, you must think only of war so you will survive.
  • One time, I found a kidnapped boy of 10 or 12, really dirty, really scared [...]. I preferred to see dead people. Alive was more terrible, because their condition was like dead. All those people who stayed a year or more in the terrorist camps had psychological troubles for the rest of their lives. He slept on my arm and our doctor told me to keep holding him, because he was nervous, he needed to feel my body to sleep. When I saw Salvatores' film, with the kidnapped boy, it was like reality for me. I told my manager, "he can make the film because he doesn’t care about money or public opinion [or even recreating] things in a perfect historical way, he cares about the true story inside the person".
  • The West is the cradle of the fucking Anglo-Saxon colonialists, profiteers, bankers and warmongers. The world now no longer believes in the bullshit of Western democracy. The whole world is now against the West.

2024

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When you read something in the Italian press, it cannot be credible, period.
  • Italian journalism and reporting [...] are all whores of the regime. I'm sorry but that's how it is. [...] when we talk about Italian newspapers, we are talking about scrap paper. Intellectual work in Italy no longer exists, coherence no longer exists. When you read something in the Italian press, it cannot be credible, period.
    • Il giornalismo e la stampa italiana [...] sono tutti delle puttane del regime, mi spiace ma è così. [...] quando parliamo dei giornali italiani, parliamo di carta straccia. Un lavoro intellettuale in Italia non esiste più, non esiste più coerenza. Quando leggi qualcosa sulla stampa italiana, questa non può essere credibile, punto e basta.
    • From an interview with Diana Mihaylova (16 February 2024), "Lilin: 'Navalny? Nazista xenofobo. L'intervista a Putin di Carlson? Ha cambiato il mondo', Mowmag.it
  • I work with news, on my private Telegram channel; therefore, I have people who pay me to be informed. If people pay to have coherent news, it means that many citizens do not agree with what the Italian media reports and it is not surprising, because the Italian press keeps telling a lot of bullshit. The Russian press is always based on a propaganda line. We must not think that in Italy they are propagandists and in Russia they tell the whole truth. There is propaganda there too, but there is a difference: Russian journalists do not distance themselves from the objective truth, which is what Westerners have started to do quite some time ago.
    • Io lavoro con le notizie, sul mio canale Telegram privato; quindi, ho della gente che mi paga per essere informata. Se la gente paga per avere delle notizie coerenti, vuol dire che molti cittadini non sono d'accordo con quello che i media italiani raccontano e non c'è da sorprendersi, perché la stampa italiana racconta un sacco di balle; continua a farlo. La stampa russa è sempre basata su una linea propagandistica. Non dobbiamo pensare che in Italia sono propagandisti e in Russia raccontino tutta la verità. Anche lì c'è propaganda, ma c'è una differenza: i giornalisti russi non si allontanano dalla verità oggettiva, quello che invece gli occidentali hanno iniziato a fare un bel po' di tempo fa.
    • From an interview with Diana Mihaylova (16 February 2024), "Lilin: 'Navalny? Nazista xenofobo. L'intervista a Putin di Carlson? Ha cambiato il mondo', Mowmag.it
  • The majority of Russians are happy and actually want to support this policy more. When we talk about protests by Russians who do not want to go to war, it is all bullshit. Russians want to go to war and they want to defeat Nazism.
  • Have you ever seen Russia waging colonial wars or wars to expand its territory? [...] The Russians do not want to invade anyone. The only reason they wage war is to ensure the security of their borders. That is why Putin has moved his army into Ukraine, because since 1998 NATO military activities have been taking place there that threaten Russia's borders. It is idiotic to say that Putin wants to invade Poland and the Baltics. Putin wants to take it easy, he does not want to have a gun pointed at his face by NATO.
    • [...] si è mai visto la Russia fare guerre coloniali o per allargare il proprio territorio? [...] I russi non vogliono invadere nessuno. L’unica cosa per cui sono capaci di fare la guerra è per assicurare la sicurezza sui propri confini. Per questo motivo Putin ha mosso l’esercito in Ucraina, perché dal 1998 in Ucraina si svolgono attività militari della NATO che minacciano i confini della Russia. È un’idiozia dire che Putin vuole invadere Polonia e Paesi Baltici. Putin vuole stare tranquillo, non vuole avere la pistola puntata in faccia dalla NATO.
    • From an interview with Diana Mihaylova (16 February 2024), "Lilin: 'Navalny? Nazista xenofobo. L'intervista a Putin di Carlson? Ha cambiato il mondo', Mowmag.it
  • The war will not be short, it will be long, but Russia will be victorious for a simple reason: we are in the midst of a change in the world order. The West will no longer be able to extend its dominion and supremacy over a part of the world.
  • My values ​​are left-wing, but not as the left is defined in Italy. I am not someone who fits into an ideology within the Italian system. I know well that in Italy some say that I am a fascist, because they quote some out-of-context phrase, or some old position of mine. But the truth is that I am the product of the Soviet system, for better or for worse.
When I was 12, Andriy Parubiy entered my town of Bender in Transnistria, leading some Nazi gangs who killed, among others, my uncle and my little cousin Tatiana.
  • I don't wish any harm to anyone. I hope that these people [Stefania Battistini and Simone Traini] will live to a ripe old age. I hope that these people will also be able to reflect on the mistakes that have been made, but I know very well how it works in Russia, I know very well who the Russians are and how they act when they get angry. When they are hit, let's say, in their heart, they react quite harshly. And so, my sincere wish to these Italian journalists who have done this pro-Nazi propaganda work is to be very careful, be very careful. Don't accept tea from strangers. Be careful at the café. Be careful where you eat. Be careful with new friends, because it may be that the GRU operatives, who are the military secret services, are already working against you, and if they have really taken on a task, you can be sure that in a year, two years, three years, five years, in any case they will find you and tear you to pieces.
    • Io non voglio augurare assolutamente nessun male, io spero che queste persone vivranno per la vita fino alla vecchiaia. Spero che questa gente potrà anche riflettere sugli errori che sono stati fatti, però io so benissimo come funziona in Russia, so benissimo chi sono i russi e come loro agiscono quando si arrabbiano, quando vengono colpiti, diciamo, nel cuore loro, reagiscono abbastanza duramente. E quindi, il mio sincero augurio a questi giornalisti italiani che hanno fatto questo lavoro di propaganda filo nazista è di stare molto attenti, stare molto attenti. Non accettate il tè dalla gente sconosciuta. Fate attenzione al bar. Fate attenzione dove mangiate. Fate attenzione alle nuove amicizie, perché può darsi che contro di voi stanno già lavorando gli agenti operativi del GRU, che sono i servizi segreti militari, e se loro veramente hanno preso un incarico, state certi che in un anno, due anni, tre anni, cinque anni, comunque vi troveranno e vi faranno a pezzi.
    • As quoted in "L'avvertimento di Nicolai Lilin ai giornalisti Rai Battistini e Traini: «Vi siete scavati la fossa da soli». E cita il polonio nel tè", Open.online (18 Agosto 2024)

Siberian Education (2009)

[edit]
  • 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.
    • Author's note
  • 'Some enjoy life, some suffer it; we fight it.'
    Old saying of the Siberian Urkas
  • 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.
    • The Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • 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 Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • 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.
    • The Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • In the Siberian community you learn to kill when you're very small. 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. Teaching people how to die is impossible, because once you’ve died there is no coming back. But teaching people to live with the threat of death, to 'tempt' fate, is not difficult. Many Siberian fairy tales tell of the deadly clash between criminals and representatives of the government, of the risks people run every day with dignity and honesty, of the good fortune of those who in the end have got the loot and stayed alive, and of the 'good memory' that is preserved of those who have died without abandoning their friends in need. Through these fairy tales, the children perceive the values that give meaning to the Siberian criminals' lives: respect, courage, friendship, loyalty. By the time they are five or six, Siberian children show a determination and a seriousness that are enviable even to adults of other communities. It is on such solid foundations that the education to kill, to take physical action against another living being, is built.
    • The Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • When he is about ten, the child is a full member of the clan of the youths, which actively cooperates with the criminals of the Siberian community. There he has the chance to face many different situations of the criminal life for the first time. The older kids teach the younger ones how to behave and through the fights and quarrels and the handling of relations with the youths of other communities, each boy is broken in.
    By the age of thirteen or fourteen, Siberian boys often have a criminal record, and therefore some experience of juvenile prison. This experience is seen as important, indeed fundamental, to the formation of the individual's character and view of the world. By that age many Siberians already have some black marketeering and one murder, or at least attempted murder, to their name. And they all know how to communicate within the criminal community, how to follow, hand down and safeguard the founding principles of Siberian criminal law.
    • The Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • In our district there was always someone going to prison or coming out of it every day, so there was nothing strange to us children in seeing a man who had been in prison; we had been brought up to expect that we would go there ourselves sooner or later, and we were accustomed to talking about prison as something quite normal, just as other boys might talk about military service or what they're going to do when they grow up. But in some cases the characters of certain former prisoners took on a heroic stature in our stories – they became the models that we wanted to be like at all costs, we wanted to live their adventurous lives which shone with criminal glamour, those lives we heard the grownups discussing and which we then talked about among ourselves, often changing the details, making those stories similar to fairy tales or fantasy adventures.
    • The Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • 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.
    • The Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • Grandfather Kuzya was an elderly criminal who lived in our district in a small house by the river. He was a very strong old man; he still had a full head of black hair and was covered all over with tattoos, even on his face. Usually he took me into the garden to show me the river, and told me fairy tales and various stories about the criminal community. He had a powerful voice, but spoke in a quiet, languid way, so that his voice seemed to be coming from far away, not from inside him. Down the left side of his wrinkled face ran a long scar, a souvenir of his criminal youth. But the most striking thing about him was his eyes. They were blue, but a dirty, muddy blue, with a hint of green; they seemed not to belong to his body, not to be part of it. They were deep, and when he turned them on you, calmly and without agitation, it was as if they were X-raying you – there was something really hypnotic about his gaze.
    • The Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • 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.
    • The Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • 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.
    • The Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • After 1992, when the military forces of Moldova tried to occupy the territory of Transnistria, our town was abandoned by everybody; we were left to fend for ourselves, as in fact we always had done. All the armed criminals resisted the Moldovan soldiers, and after three months of battles they drove them out.
    When the danger of an all-out conflict had passed, Mother Russia sent us her so-called ‘help’: the Fourteenth Army, led by the charismatic general Lebed. When they arrived in our town, which had already been free for several days, they applied the policy of military administration: curfew, house-to-house searches, the arrest and elimination of undesirable elements. During that period the river often brought to the bank the bodies of the people who had been shot, their hands tied behind their backs with wire and signs of torture on their bodies. I myself fished out four corpses of people who had been executed, so I can confirm with all my youthful authority that shootings by the Russian military were very common in Transnistria.
    The Russians tried to exploit the circumstances to install among us, in the land of criminals, their government representatives, who would have the job of administering what had previously been solely in our hands. Many Siberian criminals during that period ran a serious risk of being killed; my father, for example, was the target of three attacks, but he miraculously escaped and, not wanting to wait for a fourth, left Transnistria and moved to Greece, where he had friends as a result of some old trading connections.
    The criminals of the town tried to join forces to fight the Russian military, but many members of the communities were frightened and in the event proved willing to collaborate with the new regime. The Siberians renounced all contact with the rest of society, and by 1998 were completely isolated; they didn’t collaborate with anyone and didn’t support anyone. Other communities reached a compromise with the regime, which had proposed one of its own men as president of the country and political watchdog over all business. Very soon new government forces eliminated the people involved in those terms, taking over the administration of affairs.
    • The Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • Grandfather Kuzya had been one of the first Siberians to arrive in Transnistria. He told the story of that move with sorrow, and it was clear that he had many dark feelings inside him, connected with that time. [...]
    In present-day Russia hardly anyone knows about the deportation of the Siberians to Transnistria; some remember the times of communist collectivization, when the country was criss-crossed by trains full of poor people being moved from one region to another for reasons known only to the government.
    Grandfather Kuzya used to say the communists had planned to separate the Urkas from their families so as to make our community die, but that instead, by an irony of fate, they had probably saved it.
    From Transnistria many young men went to Siberia, to participate in the war against the communists: they robbed trains, ships and military stores and created a lot of difficulties for the communists. At regular intervals they returned to Transnistria to lick their wounds, or to spend time with their family and friends. Despite everything, this land has become a second home, to which the Siberian criminals have bound their lives.
    • The Eight-Gored Hat and the Flick-Knife
  • In the Russian criminal communities there is a strong culture of tattoos, and each tattoo has a meaning. The tattoo is a kind of identity card which places you within the criminal society – displaying your particular criminal ‘trade’, and other kinds of information about your personal life and prison experiences.
    Each community has its own tradition of tattooing, symbology and different patterns, according to which the signs are positioned on the body and eventually read and translated. The oldest tattooing culture is that of Siberia; it had been the forebears of the Siberian criminals who had created the tradition of tattooing symbols in a codified, secret manner. Later this culture was copied by other communities and spread throughout prisons all over Russia, transforming the principal meanings of the tattoos and the ways in which they were executed and translated.
    The tattoos of the most powerful criminal caste in Russia, which is called Black Seed, are all copied from the Urka tradition, but have different meanings. The images may be the same, but only a person who is able to read a body can analyse their hidden meaning and explain why they are different.
    Unlike the other communities, Siberians tattoo only by hand, using various kinds of small needle. Tattoos done with electrical tattoo machines or similar devices are not considered worthy.
    In the tradition of the Siberian Urkas the process of tattooing continues throughout the life of a criminal. The first few signs are tattooed when he is twelve years old. Then, over the years, other details are added, gradually building up a narrative. Each experience he has in his life is encoded and concealed within this single large tattoo, which becomes increasingly complete as time goes on. It has the structure of a spiral, starting from the extremities – the hands and feet – and ending at the centre of the body. The last parts of the body to be tattooed are the back and chest; this is done when the criminal is about forty or fifty years old. You will never see young people with large, complete tattoos in the Siberian criminal community, as you do in other communities.
    To be able to read bodies decorated with such complex tattoos you need a lot of experience and to know the tattooing tradition perfectly. As a result the figure of the tattooist has a special place within the Siberian criminal community: he is like a priest, trusted by everyone to act on their behalf.
    • When the Skin Speaks
  • In the Siberian community all material goods, and particularly money, are despised, so they are never even mentioned. If the Siberians speak of money, they call it 'that', or 'rubbish', 'cauliflower', or 'lemons', or they simply specify the figures, pronounce the numbers. The Siberians do not keep money in the house because it is said to bring bad luck into the family – it destroys happiness and 'scares off' good fortune. They keep it near the house, in the garden, for example, in a special hiding place, such as an animal hutch.
    So before beginning a tattoo they never mention a fixed price – they don’t mention anything connected with money. Only afterwards, when the work is finished, does the client ask the tattooist 'What do I owe you?' and the tattooist replies, 'Give me what is right.' This is the answer that is considered most honest, and is therefore most frequently used by the Siberian tattooists.
    • When the Skin Speaks
  • Around this time, in 1992, there was a war in Transnistria. After the fall of the USSR, Transnistria stayed outside the Russian Federation and no longer belonged to anybody. The neighbouring countries, Moldova and Ukraine, had designs on it. But the Ukrainians already had difficulties of their own, because of the massive corruption in the government and the ruling administration. The Moldovans, meanwhile, despite the catastrophic situation in their country – the predominantly rural population lived in abject poverty, not so say squalor – made a pact with the Romanians, and tried to occupy Transnistrian territory by military force. According to the agreement with the Romanians, Transnistria would be divided up in a special way: the Moldovan government would control the land, leaving the Romanian industrialists the job of running the numerous munitions factories, which had been built by the Russians in the days of the USSR and afterwards had remained completely under the control of the criminals, who had turned the Transnistrian territory into a kind of weapons supermarket.
    Without any warning the Moldovan military swung into action. On 22nd June a division of Moldovan tanks, accompanying ten military brigades, including one of infantry, one of special infantry and two of Romanian soldiers, reached Bender, our town on the right bank of the River Dniester, on the Moldovan border. In response, the inhabitants of Bender formed defence squads – after all, they were not short of weapons. A brief but very bloody war broke out, which lasted one summer, and ended with the criminals of Transnistria driving the Moldovan soldiers out of their land. Then they began to occupy Moldovan territory. At that point Ukraine, fearing that the criminals, if they won the war, would bring turmoil to their territory too, asked the Russians to intervene. Russia, recognizing the inhabitants of Transnistria as its own citizens, arrived with an army to 'assist the peace process'. This army set up a military regime, reinforced the police stations and declared Transnistria an 'area of extreme danger'.
    Russian soldiers patrolled the streets in armoured vehicles and imposed a curfew from eight in the evening to seven in the morning. Many people began to disappear without trace; the bodies of the tortured dead were found in the river. This period, which my grandfather called a 'return to the Thirties', lasted a long time. My Uncle Sergey was killed in prison by his guards: many people, to save themselves, were forced to abandon their land and take refuge in various other parts of the world.
    • Boris the Engine Driver
  • When the police arrived, we usually blocked their path: we'd sit or lie down in front of their cars, forcing them to stop. They'd get out and move us with a kick up the backside or by pulling us by the ears, and we would fight back. We usually singled out the youngest one and jumped on him as a group – someone would hit him, someone else would grab his arm and bite it, someone else would cling on to his back and snatch off his hat, yet another would rip the buttons off his uniform or take his pistol out of his holster. We'd go on like this till the cop couldn't stand any more, or till his colleagues started hitting us really hard.
    The unluckiest of us got hit on the head with a truncheon, lost some blood and ran away.
    • My Birthday
  • A verbal message is called a 'puff'. When an adult criminal wants to make a puff he calls a boy, perhaps one of his own children, and tells him the content of the message in the criminal language fenya, which derives from the old language of the forebears of the Siberian criminals, the Efey. Oral messages are always short and have a firm meaning. They are used for relatively straightforward, everyday matters.
    • My Birthday
  • Our elders had taught us well.
    First of all, you had to respect all living creatures – a category which did not include policemen, people connected with the government, bankers, loan sharks and all those who had the power of money in their hands and exploited ordinary people.
    Secondly, you had to believe in God and in his Son, Jesus Christ, and love and respect the other ways of believing in God which were different from our own. But the Church and religion must never be seen as a structure. My grandfather used to say that God didn't create priests, but only free men; there were some good priests, and in such cases it was not sinful to go to the places where they carried out their activities, but it definitely was a sin to think that in the eyes of God priests had more power than other men.
    Lastly, we must not do to others what we wouldn't want to be done to us: and if one day we were obliged to do it nonetheless, there must be a good reason.
    One of the elders with whom I often discussed these Siberian philosophies used to say that in his opinion our world was full of people who went down wrong roads, and who after taking one false step went further and further away from the straight path. He argued that in many cases there was no point in trying to persuade them to return to the right road, because they were too far away, and the only thing that remained to do was to end their existence, 'remove them from the road'.
    'A man who is rich and powerful,' the old man would say, 'in walking along his wrong road will ruin many lives; he will cause trouble for many people who in some way depend on him. The only way of putting everything right is to kill him, and thereby to destroy the power that he has built upon money.'
    I would object:
    'But what if the murder of this person were also a false step? Wouldn't it be better to avoid having any contact with him, and leave it at that?'
    The old man would look at me in amazement, and reply with such conviction that it made my head spin:
    'Who do you think you are, boy – Jesus Christ? Only He can work miracles; we must only serve Our Lord... And what better service could we do than to remove from the face of the world the children of Satan?'
    He was too good, that old man.
    • My Birthday
  • I invented the method of setting fire to the cars in the yard of the police station using a catapult. The yard was surrounded by a very high wall, and in order to fire something into it you had to venture too close and they would, inevitably, catch you as soon as they saw you arrive. Molotov cocktails were too heavy to throw, and whenever we tried they didn't even reach halfway up the wall before smashing. We would always end up exchanging disconsolate looks, thinking that all the effort we'd made to prepare those bottles was burnt up in an instant against that grey wall. We had begun to lose heart, until one day I came across some liquor belonging to my uncle in the cupboard. What I found was a lot of small bottles containing various kinds of spirit – those little bottles for alcoholic dwarves. I emptied some of them; after all my uncle was in jail, and in any case he wouldn't have scolded me, because I was making good use of them. I made a mini-molotov, then I constructed a special catapult, slightly stronger than usual, and after carrying out some preliminary tests, which it passed with flying colours, I prepared a box full of mini-molotovs (which we called 'mignons') and ten catapults for firing them.
    • My Birthday
  • Our little bottles flew spectacularly, whistling like bullets as they disappeared over the wall of the police station. When I heard the small explosions followed by the cries of the cops and the first signs of black smoke, which rose in the air like fantastic dragons, I felt like bursting into tears, I was so happy.
    • My Birthday
  • In the criminal world Black Seed was a young but powerful caste, which had succeeded in exploiting the philosophy of personal sacrifice. Its members appeared to be pure and perfect men, who devoted their lives to the welfare of people in prison. They worshipped prison: they referred to it affectionately as 'home', 'church' or 'mother', and were happy to spend time there, even their whole lives. Whereas all the other castes, including that of the Siberian Urkas, despised prison and put up with detention as you might a misfortune.
    Thanks to the enormous number of scum and lowlifes that had joined its ranks, Black Seed had become the largest caste in the Russian criminal world: but for every wise and good person that you could find among them, you would meet another twenty uncouth and sadistic ones, who showed off and threw their weight around in every possible situation.
    Then there was another very unusual caste: Red Seed, whose members collaborated with the police and believed in the nonsense purveyed by the prison administrations, such as 'redemption of the personality'. They were called 'cuckolds', 'reds', 'comrades', sucha, padla – all very pejorative words in the criminal community.
    All the people in the middle were called Grey Seed, or neutrals. They were opposed to the police and observed the rules of criminal life, but they didn't have the responsibilities, let alone the philosophy, of Black Seed, and they certainly didn't want to spend their whole lives in prison.
    The members of Black Seed were required to disown their relatives; they weren't allowed to have either a home or a family. Like all the other criminals they idolized the figure of the mother, but many of them didn't respect their own mothers; on the contrary, they treated them very badly. Many is the poor woman I've known with sons who, while they were in prison, declared to each other in a theatrical manner that the only thing they really missed was their mother and then, when they got out, turned up at home only to exploit her, and sometimes even rob her, because that is what their rule says: 'Every Blatnoy – member of Black Seed – must take everything away from his home; only in this way can he prove that he is honest through and through...'
    It was madness – mothers and fathers were robbed, threatened and sometimes even killed. A short and violent life, as the Black Seed described it: 'Wine, cards, women, and then let the world come tumbling down...', with no moral or social commitment. Their whole life becomes one long show, in which they must always demonstrate only the negative and primitive sides of their nature.
    • My Birthday
  • The Urkas and the Cossacks had always been on the same wavelength and got on well: both groups respected the old traditions, loved the nation and their homeland and believed in independence of any form of power. Both were persecuted by various Russian governments in different ages, for their desire for freedom. It was just that the Urkas were more extreme, and had a particular hierarchical structure. The Cossacks, on the other hand, regarded themselves as a free army, and so had a paramilitary structure; in peacetime their main occupation was raising livestock.
    • My Birthday
  • When we were about ten years old, we went to the cinema to see a film called The Shield and the Sword. The main character, a Soviet secret agent, appeared in various action scenes, shooting his capitalist enemies with his silenced gun and doing a lot of acrobatics. The guy risked his life as if he were doing something perfectly normal and routine, to combat injustice in the NATO countries. It was a kind of Russian response to the many American and British films about the cold war, where the Soviets were usually portrayed as stupid, incompetent monkeys who played about with the atomic bomb and wanted to destroy the world. We, despite the rule imposed by our elders, had gone to see it in the only cinema in town (they hadn't yet built the second cinema, which was to have a very short life, because it was destroyed in the 1992 war: the Romanian soldiers took up their positions there, and our fathers, in order to kill them, one night blew the whole complex up, including the restaurant and the ice-cream parlour). Well, at one point in the film the main character jumped off the roof of a very tall building, using a big umbrella as a parachute, and landed comfortably without getting hurt. You could say he did a Mary Poppins.
    • My Birthday
  • [...] in our culture a 'cockerel' – that is, a homosexual – is an outcast: if he isn't killed he is prevented from having contact with others and forbidden to touch cult objects such as the cross, the knife and the icons.
    • My Birthday
  • [...] to Siberians wearing glasses is like voluntarily sitting in a wheelchair – it's a sign of weakness, a personal defeat. Even if you don't have good eyesight you must never wear glasses, in order to preserve your dignity and your healthy appearance.
    • My Birthday
  • 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.
    • Juvenile Prison
  • According to the Siberian tradition, homosexuality is a very serious infectious disease, because it destroys the human soul; so we grew up with a total hatred of homosexuals. This disease, which among our people has no precise name and is simply called ‘the sickness of the flesh’, is transmitted through the gaze, so a Siberian criminal will never look a homosexual in the eye. In the adult prisons, in places where the majority of inmates are of the Orthodox Siberian faith, homosexuals are forced to commit suicide, because they can’t share the same spaces with the others. As the Siberian proverb says: ‘The sick of the flesh do not sleep beneath the icons.’
    I never fully understood the question of hatred for homosexuals, but since I was brought up in this way, I followed the herd. Over the years I have had many homosexual friends, people with whom I have worked and done business, and I have had a good relationship with many of them; I found them congenial, I liked them as people. And yet I have never been able to break the habit of calling someone a queer or a pansy if I want to insult them, even though immediately afterwards I regret it and feel ashamed. It’s Siberian education speaking for me.
    • Juvenile Prison
  • Some of the guards often raped the boys, too; this usually happened in the showers. You were allowed to take a shower once a week if you were in the ordinary regime, whereas in the special regime, where I was, you could only do so once a month. We used to improvise with plastic bottles, rigging up a shower over the toilet, since we always had plenty of hot water. When we went to the shower block it was like a military operation: we all walked close together; if there were any weak or sick boys among us we put them in the middle and always kept an eye on them; we moved like a platoon of soldiers.
    • Juvenile Prison
  • There was one disgusting old screw: he had been a guard in an adult prison all his life, and after studying child psychology had asked for a transfer to a juvenile institution. He wielded a lot of power in our prison. Although he was only a warder, he rivalled the director, because he had links with people who organized a new activity which had arrived from abroad along with democracy, as a form of free life. These people made paedophile films and forced the boys to prostitute themselves, having sex with foreigners, people who arrived from Europe and the USA, people who had pots of money and hence, in the new democratic system, immense power.
    Many boys were picked up at a particular time of day from the cells and came back the next day with bags full of food and all kinds of stuff, such as glossy magazines, colouring pencils and other things which nobody in jail could dream of possessing. Their cellmates were forbidden to touch them or mistreat them; they were untouchable, nobody dared to raise a finger against them, because everyone knew those boys were the old warder’s whores. They called him ‘Crocodile Zhena’, after a character in a Soviet cartoon. The whores they called by women’s names. Their bunk was usually down at the end, near the door, and they stayed there all the time.
    • Juvenile Prison
  • Since my childhood I had been surrounded by handicapped adults and children, such as my close friend Boris, the engine driver, who met the tragic end that I have already described. Many mentally ill people lived in our area, and they kept coming to Transnistria until the 1990s, when the law against keeping the mentally ill at home was abolished.
    • Ksyusha
  • Between Black Seed and us there had always been a kind of tension; they described themselves as the leaders of the criminal world, and their presence was very evident both inside prison and outside, but the foundations of their criminal tradition, most of their rules, and even their tattoos, were copied from us Urkas.
    Their caste emerged at the beginning of the century, exploiting a moment of great social weakness in the country, which was full of desperate people – vagabonds and small-time criminals who were happy to go to prison for the sake of the free meals and the certainty of having a roof over their heads at night. Gradually they became a powerful community, but one with a lot of flaws, as many Authorities of Black Seed themselves acknowledged.
    • Ksyusha
  • 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.
    • Ksyusha
  • The Ukrainians drank a lot, a habit they shared with the rest of the Soviet population, certainly, but they did so in a particularly unrestrained manner, without the filter of tradition and without a trace of morality. In Siberia alcohol is drunk in obedience to certain reasonable rules, so as not to cause irreparable damage to one’s health: accordingly, Siberian vodka is made exclusively of wheat, and is purified with milk, which removes the residue of the manufacturing process, so that the final product has a perfect purity. Moreover, vodka must only be drunk with food (in Siberia people eat a lot, and dishes are very rich, because you burn off a large amount of fat in resisting the cold and preserving vitamins in winter): if you eat the right dishes, it is possible to drink as much as a litre of vodka per person without any problem. In Ukraine, however, they drink vodka of various kinds: they extract the alcohol from potatoes or pumpkins, and the sugary substances make you drunk at once. The Siberians never get too drunk, don’t pass out and don’t vomit, but the Ukrainians drink themselves unconscious, and it can take them as long as two days to work off the hangover.
    • Ksyusha
  • The Ukrainians’ sons were notorious as mothers’ boys, and as people incapable of doing anything useful either for themselves or for others. In Bender nobody trusted them because they were always telling lies to make themselves seem important, but they did it so clumsily that no one could possibly have believed them: we just treated them as poor idiots. Some of them even tried to make money by inventing non-existent laws: for example, that a brother could force his sister to prostitute herself. The exploitation of prostitution had always been considered an offence unworthy of a criminal: men convicted of that kind of crime were liable to be killed in jail; it could happen outside as well, to tell the truth, but it was rare for them to get out of prison alive. The Ukrainians simply didn’t understand this; they would wander around the districts of the town, trying in vain to get into the bars and nightclubs. All doors were always closed to them, since the money they wanted to spend had been earned in an unworthy manner. They went on without stopping to wonder why, creating an increasingly deep rift between their community and the rest of the town.
    • Ksyusha
  • Plum killed enormous numbers of people [...]. He had a huge collection of badges of the police officers and members of the security forces he had killed during his career. He kept them on a large dresser in the red corner of his house, under the icons, where there was also a photograph of his family with a candle always burning in front of it.
    I saw the collection with my own eyes. It was staggering. Dozens of badges of all periods, from the Fifties to the mid-Eighties – some blood-stained, others with bullet-holes in them. They were all there: policemen from the forces of towns all over Russia, members of special units formed to combat organized crime, KGB agents, prison guards, agents of the Public Prosecutor’s office.
    Plum said there were more than twelve thousand of them, but that he hadn’t been able to recover the badges in every case. He remembered everything about each man with total precision: how and when he’d killed him.
    • Ksyusha
  • I fired without thinking too much about it, adopting my usual Macedonian technique. I didn’t take aim, I fired at where I knew the guys were, and watched their dying convulsions.
    • Ksyusha

Quotes about Nicolai Lilin

[edit]
Alphabetized by author
  • He doesn't belong to a family of criminals, much less a Siberian one. His surname, for what it's worth, also sounds Polish. [...] When all's said and done, Lilin is just a boy who emigrated to a country where he had few chances of making something for himself, and he screwed it up big time by exploiting his exotic origins, inventing an adventurous character and passing it off as real. He is a literary impostor who plays on the thin line between imagination and reality. Life is never as romantic as we would like it to be, and this pushes some to play a role they never had in the real world. Posing as a descendant of a criminal tribe and a Chechen War veteran is less risky than fighting in Chechnya and carrying out illegal activities. At most, people will think you're a liar.
    • Non appartiene a una famiglia di criminali, tanto meno siberiani. Il cognome del resto suona come polacco. [...] In fondo Lilin è solo un ragazzo emigrato in un paese dove non aveva molte possibilità di combinare qualcosa di decente, e l'ha sfangata alla grande sfruttando le origini esotiche, inventandosi un personaggio avventuroso e spacciandolo per vero. È un impostore letterario che gioca sul sottile confine tra immaginazione e realtà. La vita non è mai così romantica come vorremmo che fosse, e questo spinge qualcuno a recitare un ruolo che non ha mai avuto nel mondo reale. Atteggiarsi da discendente di una tribù criminale e reduce dalla Cecenia è meno rischioso che combattere in Cecenia e svolgere attività illegali. Al massimo la gente pensa che tu possa mentire.
    • Antonio Armano (27 June 2017), "E se il romanzo autobiografico "Educazione Siberiana" di Nicolai Lilin così autobiografico non fosse?", Ilfattoquotidiano.it
  • Un tappeto di boschi selvaggi [Lilin's autobiography] includes the reabilitatsiya, the rehabilitation certificate, of his great-grandfather (Nikolay Verzhbitsky). Lilin, in writing the texts of this photographic and autobiographical book, inserted the document and passed it off as a death sentence, as if there was nobody in Italy who knows a bit of Russian. It turns out his great-grandfather was born in Tiraspol, not in Siberia. [...] He was not a Siberian criminal deported to Moldova but, on the contrary, one of the many victims of Stalin's repressions, killed because he had a foreign surname and came from Moldova.
    • Un tappeto di boschi selvaggi riporta la rjabilitacija, il certificato di riabilitazione del bisnonno (Nikolaj Veržbickij). Lilin, scrivendo i testi di questo libro fotografico e autobiografico, ha inserito il documento, spacciandolo per una condanna a morte. Come se in Italia non ci fosse nessuno che mastica un po' di russo. Intanto il bisnonno risulta nato a Tiraspol', non in Siberia. [...] Non era un criminale siberiano deportato in Moldavia, ma al contrario una delle tante vittime delle repressioni staliniane, ucciso perché aveva un cognome straniero e veniva dalla Moldavia.
    • Antonio Armano (27 June 2017), "E se il romanzo autobiografico "Educazione Siberiana" di Nicolai Lilin così autobiografico non fosse?", Ilfattoquotidiano.it
  • He brings his fictional biography to life from beginning to end. And the more far-fetched it is, the more shocking moments it contains, the more fans he has. [...] All the facts of his biography have nothing to do with Siberia, Moldova or reality in general.
    • Fa vivere la storia immaginaria della sua vita dall'inizio alla fine. E più la sua biografia è inverosimile, più momenti scioccanti contiene, più fan ha. [...] Tutti i fatti della sua biografia non hanno nulla a che fare con la Siberia, la Moldova o la realtà in generale.
    • Alexander Bayanov (10 July 2024), "Le finzioni di Nicolai Lilin, falso-siberiano, e i missili veri su Kyiv", Vita.it
  • He has never lived in Siberia and this whole criminal story about the Urka people in Siberian Education (Einaudi), who never existed, is fiction from beginning to end. Nicolai easily and even skillfully collects artistic facts that can actually be found in Russian and Soviet writers, for example, Dostoevsky, and which, over time, turn into stereotypes and prejudices about Russia and Siberia in the minds of readers. And on this basis it transforms them into presumed facts of modern, current reality. This is called an artistic hoax.
    • Non ha mai vissuto in Siberia, tutta questa storia criminale sul popolo Urka in Educazione siberiana (Einaudi) che non è mai esistito è una finzione dall’inizio alla fine. Nicolai raccoglie facilmente e persino con talento fatti artistici che possono effettivamente essere trovati negli scrittori russi e sovietici, ad esempio Dostoevskij, e che nel tempo si trasformano nella mente dei lettori in stereotipi e pregiudizi sulla Russia e la Siberia. E su questa base li trasforma in presunti fatti della realtà moderna, attuale. Questa si chiama bufala artistica.
    • Alexander Bayanov (10 July 2024), "Le finzioni di Nicolai Lilin, falso-siberiano, e i missili veri su Kyiv", Vita.it
  • Siberian Education feels like a compendium of the dark fantasies that Westerners have about Transdniester as a place where people are left to fend for themselves or establish their own law. The reader is led to believe that the laws of the Siberian urkas are but one set of these surrogate forms of authority that exist in the black hole of Europe. It is a laughable portrayal.
  • Lilin [has] forsaken his criminal upbringing in favor of a successful literary career in which he peddles Westerners their own deepest, darkest fears about Transdniester and Russia. Astutely aware of the region's outsized reputation, Lilin has found a literary niche, a captive audience uninterested in the facts.
  • While framed as a memoir, Siberian Education deliberately embellishes the criminal elements of the PMR. As a storyteller, Lilin is the quintessential insider who confirms our darkest fears and fantasies. Born and raised in the PMR, he himself embodies its outlaw reputation and handsomely profits from it.
    • Michael Bobick (November 2011), "Profits of disorder: images of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic", Global Crime, Vol. 12, No. 4, 239–265
  • As an author, Lilin places himself in the unimpeachable position of a trusted insider. Yet, upon closer inspection his biography and criminal history are more fictive than real. In online forums addressing the book's content and local reactions to it, locals and former acquaintances of Lilin intimate that, far from being a criminal, he actually served in the local militia before he emigrated. Locals' reactions to translated parts of his book range from disbelief and laughter to anger and outrage at the author's hollow attempts to besmirch his native city. Perhaps tellingly, some express astonishment that he was capable of pulling such a fast one on westerners.
    • Michael Bobick (November 2011), "Profits of disorder: images of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic", Global Crime, Vol. 12, No. 4, 239–265
  • Although Lilin's book [Siberian Education] is about a Russian-speaking region and his native language is Russian, he writes in the language of his adopted native land, following in the tradition of Nabokov, Serge, and Triolet (nee Kagan). His choice to write in a non-native idiom firmly places his audience outside of the Russian-speaking world, yet the subjects of his two books – criminality in Transnistria and his experiences as a saboteur in Chechnya – emerge from distinctly Russian contexts. Perhaps most tellingly, both issues touch upon a perceived incommensurability between Russia and the West. It is somewhat ironic that Lilin's audience consists of the very same westerners who previously were the objects of his scorn. The enemy that he once hated, the West, now provides his bread and butter; the fact that there will soon be a film based on the book only adds to the absurdity.
    • Michael Bobick (November 2011), "Profits of disorder: images of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic", Global Crime, Vol. 12, No. 4, 239–265
  • Somehow as a reader I find myself genuinely interested in the details of how someone with such a lengthy criminal record could serve multiple tours in Chechnya, immigrate to Ireland, move to Italy, learn Italian, and write a bestseller for a prominent Italian publishing house. Yet, his choice of subjects, his presentation of them, and his inability to acknowledge his critics leave the reader with even rudimentary knowledge of Transnistria wondering how one can so thoroughly drain the rich social fabric of the region of its content while simultaneously seeing criminal in anything and everything.
    • Michael Bobick (November 2011), "Profits of disorder: images of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic", Global Crime, Vol. 12, No. 4, 239–265
  • Publishing has been plagued by fabricated memoirs in recent years. [...] But Nicolai Lilin's Free Fall: a Sniper's Story from Chechnya may be unique. Lilin, who wrote a brutal first-person account of fighting in the Russian army in the Chechen war, praised by its publisher as "a unique and remarkable memoir", has admitted that he did not experience much of what he described and deliberately embellished it to help sales.
  • [...] it contains tales so unlikely that most editors would surely have spotted them as false, such as when Lilin finds a Chechen with a rifle loaded with hyper-accurate bullets filled with liquid mercury. Such an idea is nonsense since the liquid would shift in flight and render them useless.
  • The foreword states that names, dates and places have been changed "to protect those involved" but gives no clue that the book is not a truthful account of someone's experiences. Almost a quarter of the book, pages 99-188, is an ultra-violent account of fighting in a built-up area – presumably Grozny – in which Lilin and his group rescued a cut off Russian unit, but not before it had lost 13 lieutenant-colonels.
  • Judging by the many laudatory reviews of Nicolai Lilin's book in the European and American media, Western readers have no doubts about the veracity of the facts he presents. [...] The reviewers were not even bothered by the fact that Bender was called Tighina before 1940 and was part of Romania, and Stalin simply could not exile anyone there, especially since people back then were exiled to Siberia, not from it.
    • Судя по множеству хвалебных рецензий на книгу Николая Лилина в европейских и американских СМИ, никаких сомнений в достоверности изложенных им фактов у западных читателей не возникло. [...] Рецензентов не смутил даже тот факт, что до 1940 года Бендеры назывались Тигиной и были частью Румынии, и Сталин просто не мог никого туда сослать, тем более что тогда людей ссылали в Сибирь, а не из нее.
    • Elena Chernenko (3 October 2011), "Татуированная клюква", Kommersant.ru
  • If we summarize the information from Nicolai Lilin's book, his interviews in the Western press and speeches at book fairs, then by the age of 23 the author had managed to: serve two terms in a Transnistrian prison, be under investigation in Russia, serve three years as a sniper in Chechnya and a couple more years as a mercenary in Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan. At 24, he got a job as a fisherman on a ship in Ireland, then moved to Italy, where he got married, opened a tattoo parlor, wrote a bestseller and almost became a victim of a politically motivated assassination attempt. Now Nikolai Lilin is 30 years old, he has his own fan club and he seriously discusses why Anthony Hopkins is not suitable for the lead role in the Hollywood film adaptation of his book.
    • Если обобщить данные из книги Николая Лилина, его интервью в западной прессе и выступления на книжных ярмарках, то к 23 годам автор успел: дважды отсидеть в приднестровской тюрьме, побывать под следствием в России, три года отслужить снайпером в Чечне и еще пару лет наемником в Израиле, Ираке и Афганистане. В 24 он устроился рыбаком на судно в Ирландии, потом переехал в Италию, где женился, открыл тату-салон, написал бестселлер и едва не стал жертвой политически мотивированного покушения. Сейчас Николаю Лилину 30 лет, у него есть собственный фан-клуб и он всерьез рассуждает о том, почему Энтони Хопкинс не подходит на главную роль в голливудской экранизации его книги.
    • Elena Chernenko (3 October 2011), "Татуированная клюква", Kommersant.ru
  • I asked Nicolai Lilin-Verzhbitsky what he thought about the comments of his former friends. He thinks that they envy him: "They feel offended and inferior. I managed to leave there and achieve something, but they did not". At the same time, in a conversation with me, unlike in interviews with Western journalists, he repeatedly emphasized that his book is not an autobiography and that his Western publishers are marketing it as such. And he, they say, has nothing to do with it.
    • Я спросила Николая Лилина-Вержбицкого, что он думает о комментариях своих бывших друзей. Он считает, что они ему завидуют: "Они себя чувствуют обиженными и ущербными. У меня получилось уехать оттуда и добиться чего-то, а у них нет". При этом он в беседе со мной — в отличие от интервью западным журналистам — неоднократно подчеркивал, что его книга не является автобиографией и что как таковую ее позиционируют его западные издатели. А он тут, дескать, ни при чем.
    • Elena Chernenko (3 October 2011), "Татуированная клюква", Kommersant.ru
  • The author insists that the book [Free Fall] is based on his own combat experience in Chechnya. In an interview with Ogonyok, he said that he took part in the second Chechen campaign, but refused to give details. I learned from the Italian media that he allegedly served in the 56th Guards Airborne Assault Regiment. However, sources in the Ministry of Defense claim that there was no soldier named Lilin or Verzhbitsky in Chechnya.
    • Автор настаивает, что книга основана на его собственном боевом опыте в Чечне. В интервью "Огоньку" он сказал, что был участником второй чеченской кампании, но отказался привести подробности. Из итальянских СМИ я узнала, что он якобы служил в 56-м гвардейском десантно-штурмовом полку. Однако источники в Минобороны утверждают, что солдата по фамилии Лилин или Вержбицкий в Чечне не было.
    • Elena Chernenko (3 October 2011), "Татуированная клюква", Kommersant.ru
  • Nicolai Lilin has fled Italy because, he says, he was accused of being a spy for Putin. Considering the bullshit he has told since he arrived in Italy, probably none of this is true, except that he fled. If you are a spy, they don't take your passport away, they take you away. Who knows?
    • Nicolai Lilin è scappato dall'Italia perché, dice lui, accusato di essere una spia di Putin. Considerando le balle che ha raccontato da quando è arrivato in Italia, probabilmente non è vero niente, a parte la fuga. Se sei una spia, non ti ritirano il passaporto, ti portano via. Ma chissà.
    • Sandrone Dazieri (19 August 2024), "Siberia e dintorni", X.com
  • I met Lilin years ago after the publication of Siberian Education. He told me he was a friend of Licio Gelli and that he went around armed because he had many enemies. The book was very interesting, but it contained a series of obvious lies, both about the history of Russia and about his life. Half of my family is Russian and therefore I have direct sources, but I was amazed that everyone believed him. Shortly afterward, he wrote an article for L'Espresso, where he explained that he was a former sniper and that he had received offers from high-level mercenary groups to go and fight somewhere. It was such bullshit that I expected people to throw eggs at him. But no. The world of culture began to acclaim him as a hero, a thinker, a philosopher. Just look at those with whom he debated, who introduced him, who praised him. It was like living in a parallel world where those who loved him most were left-leaning. He took part in debates on democracy, on war, on the whole world, he had exhibitions of "Siberian" tattoos with institutional sponsorships. Every time I spoke about him I was accused of spreading shit about "someone more famous than you" or of having been fooled by Russian friends and relatives, who evidently had it in for someone who told the truth about the Putin regime.
    • Lilin lo conobbi anni fa dopo la pubblicazione di Educazione Siberiana, mi raccontò di essere amico di Licio Gelli e di andare in giro armato perché aveva tanti nemici. Il libro era molto interessante, ma conteneva una serie di balle evidenti sia sulla storia della Russia, sia sulla sua vita. Metà della mia famiglia è russa e quindi ho fonti dirette, ma ero stupefatto che tutti gli credessero. Poco dopo scrisse un pezzo per l'Espresso, dove spiegava di essere un ex cecchino e di aver ricevuto offerte da gruppi mercenari di alto livello per andare a combattere da qualche parte. Era talmente una vaccata che mi aspettavo gli tirassero le uova. No. Il mondo della cultura cominciò ad acclamarlo con un eroe, un pensatore, un filosofo. Guardate con chi faceva dibattiti, chi lo presentava, chi lo incensava. Era come vivere in un mondo parallelo dove, soprattutto, chi lo amava di più era la sinistra. Partecipava a dibattiti sulla democrazia, sulla guerra, sul mondo intero, faceva mostre di tatuaggi "siberiani" con le sponsorizzazioni istituzionali. Ogni volta che parlavo di lui venivo accusato di spargere merda su "uno più famoso di te" oppure di essermi fatto abbindolare da amici e parenti russi, che evidentemente ce l'avevano con uno che diceva la verità sul regime putiniano.
    • Sandrone Dazieri (19 August 2024), "Siberia e dintorni", X.com
  • Over time his books began to sell less and he became a propagandist of the worst pro-Putin bullshit. I thought that anyone who had given him prestige and visibility would have done some self-criticism. Fat chance. People who I knew very well on the left decided to side with him because he was a "pacifist" and once again it seemed absurd to me, like an episode of Black Mirror. Just how was it possible that they would ally themselves with someone who published photomontages of the Ukrainian president snorting cocaine, in which he wrote that Navalny's wife was having fun with her lovers while he was dying? Who insulted homosexuals hiding in the Ukrainian army? I don't know, I still can't understand it. Okay, the story is not over, given that today he made veiled threats to use polonium on journalists who speak badly of the Tsar. I just hope that, now that he is a fugitive, he doesn't become a martyr for free thought. And I also hope that those who previously praised him don't insult him now. Certain things have to be done when it's hard, not when it's convenient. But we're in Italy. Whoever talks the loudest always wins.
    • [...] con il tempo i suoi libri cominciarono a vendere meno e divenne un propagandista delle peggio balle pro Putin. Pensavo che qualcuno che gli aveva dato lustro e visibilità avrebbe fatto autocritica. Invece no. Persone di sinistra che conoscevo molto bene decisero di candidarsi con lui perché "pacifista" e ancora una volta mi sembrò assurdo. Come una puntata di Black Mirror. Ma come era possibile che si alleassero con uno che pubblicava fotomontaggi con il presidente ucraino che tirava cocaina, in cui scriveva che la moglie di Navalny si divertiva con gli amanti mentre lui moriva? Che insultava gli omosessuali nascosti nell'esercito ucraino? Non lo so, non riesco a capirlo nemmeno ora. Va bè, la storia non è finita, visto che sono di oggi le sue velate minacce al polonio per i giornalisti che parlano male dello Zar. Spero solo che, adesso che è latitante, non se ne faccia un martire del libero pensiero. E spero anche chi lo incensava adesso non lo insulti. Eh no, certe cose vanno fatte quando è difficile, non quando conviene. Ma siamo in Italia. Chi la spara più grossa vince sempre.
    • Sandrone Dazieri (19 August 2024), "Siberia e dintorni", X.com
  • Nicolai Lilin's words, in which he finds himself threatening our journalists with mafia-like methods and tones, are, to say the least, shameful. [...] But it is also shameful that this character has for years been invited to important television studios to talk about the Russian war in Ukraine, and that he has had ample space to pollute public discourse in our country.
    • Le parole di Nicolai Lilin in cui nella pratica si trova a minacciare di nostri i nostri giornalisti, tra l’altro con modi e toni mafiosi, sono a dir poco vergognose. [...] Ma vergognoso è anche il fatto che questo personaggio sia stato invitato per anni in importanti salotti televisivi a parlare della guerra russa in Ucraina, e che abbia avuto così tanto spazio per inquinare il dibattito pubblico nel nostro Paese.
    • Federica Onori (27 August 2024), "Ubriachi di propaganda. La grande disinformazione italiana che fa il gioco di Putin", Linkiesta.it
  • His works ("Free Fall: A Sniper’s Story" and "Siberian Education") are truly impressive for their triteness and the sheer quantity of outright lies, nevertheless, this man is a favorite among some Western readers in Europe and the United Kingdom.
  • Needless to say, Lilin has never set foot in Chechnya or a Siberian prison, but, following in the footsteps of Baron Munchhausen, this does not stop him spouting a load of exorbitant cock-and-bull stories – and everyone, at least nearly everyone, laps them up!
  • Inside Russia people watch Nikolai Lilin’s ascent with surprise and admiration. [...] Wild and uncivilized as Russia may be, it is still highly unlikely that a book by a contemporary German writer about a squadron of former SS officers hiding in the forests outside Berlin, listening to Wagner with their children and grandchildren, reading aloud from the works of Junge and banging on tin drums as they rob passing trains, would ever be published here. [...] Everyone here would immediately see this drivel for what it is. But back in Europe, strange things can happen. Plenty of second-rate books make it to print, and the most popular still seem to be this load of nonsense that no one in his right mind would ever bother reading in Russia.
  • If you would prefer Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs without their ingenious wit and structure, this may be a book for you.
    • On Siberian Education. Donald Rayfield (1 August 2010), "Bloodbath. Siberian Education by Nicolai Lilin (Translated by Jonathan Hunt)", Literary Review, 378
  • The narrative mode of the book is strange: sometimes, an anthropologist seems to be describing the traditions of a hitherto unknown Siberian ethnos who combine utterly ruthless criminality with the religious punctiliousness of the Exclusive Brethren, their traditions embodied in a Grandfather Kuzya who guides the juvenile hero and his friends on when, whom, how and with what weapon to maim and kill. At other times, author and reader wallow in a pornography of violence.
    • On Siberian Education. Donald Rayfield (1 August 2010), "Bloodbath. Siberian Education by Nicolai Lilin (Translated by Jonathan Hunt)", Literary Review, 378
  • If this "memoir" were believable, it might have some value (and serve as a pretext for invading Transnistria as a festering sore of criminality). But credulity collapses in the first pages, and not just because the chronology is a complete mess. The background to the "memoir" (in interviews on Italian television Lilin has begun to call Siberian Education an "autobiographical fairy-tale") is the deportation by Stalin in the 1930s of a group of intolerably active and anti-communist Siberian robbers westwards to Bendery on the Dnestr river, where they flourished in the 1990s. Usually, Stalin either shot such people, or sent them 1,000 miles closer to the North Pole: this would be Stalin's only recorded deportation from Siberia to Europe, all the more incredible because Bendery was from 1918 to 1940 in Romania.
    • On Siberian Education. Donald Rayfield (1 August 2010), "Bloodbath. Siberian Education by Nicolai Lilin (Translated by Jonathan Hunt)", Literary Review, 378
  • Translation rights to this book have been sold all over the world, but not in Russian, Romanian, Ukrainian, or any language which the inhabitants of Bendery and Tiraspol might read. Lilin explains this as a precaution against revenge for revealing the secrets of the Siberian urka's language, tattoos and code. Doctoral theses and Internet archives, however, tell everything about the symbolism of Russian criminal tattoos, while the beliefs of Orthodox dissenters and of "thieves-in-the-law" have been described for over a century (but never before confounded as they are in this book, where revolvers used for killing are kept under icons).
    • On Siberian Education. Donald Rayfield (1 August 2010), "Bloodbath. Siberian Education by Nicolai Lilin (Translated by Jonathan Hunt)", Literary Review, 378
  • Nicolai Lilin (if that is his real name) has obviously encountered the criminal world, but he makes gross errors – claiming that fenia, the criminal jargon originated by the ofenia, Russian travelling pedlars, is an aboriginal Siberian language.
    • On Siberian Education. Donald Rayfield (1 August 2010), "Bloodbath. Siberian Education by Nicolai Lilin (Translated by Jonathan Hunt)", Literary Review, 378
  • This book reads like a fantasist's ravings [...]. The success of Educazione siberiana implies that Italian publishing is floundering in the same cesspit as Italian television. One can only hope that British readers are not so gullible.
    • On Siberian Education. Donald Rayfield (1 August 2010), "Bloodbath. Siberian Education by Nicolai Lilin (Translated by Jonathan Hunt)", Literary Review, 378
  • Hailed as an insider's account of a cruel yet unknown world, Siberian Education was a literary sensation when first published in Italy in 2009. Lilin's raw and ungrammatical Italian has now been smoothed into readable English by Jonathan Hunt. The veracity of the story's basic elements has been fiercely defended by Lilin and accepted by many critics; yet many readers may feel they have landed in the Hayborian age invented by Robert Ervin Howard, among the likes of Conan the Barbarian and the Vanir warlords.
  • The book [Siberian Education] is presented as a "shocking exposé of an extraordinary criminal underworld", although a strategically placed note (absent from the Italian edition) warns the reader that "certain episodes are imaginative recreation, and those [unspecified] episodes are not intended to portray actual events". During an interview on Italian television, Lilin repeatedly threatened a journalist who cast doubt on his story. At the risk of exposing myself to the wrath of the last descendant of the Siberian criminals, I venture to say that the urkas have never existed — at least not as described by the author.
  • When confronted with glaring innaccuracies and contradictions, Lilin retorted that these charges are the equivalent of accusing Anne Frank of miscounting the number of electricity poles in Bergen-Belsen. I leave it to the reader to pass judgement on the aptness and sensitivity of the comparison.
  • Lilin draws on the vast literature about the prison life and criminal underworld of Russia to create a sect whose putative "Siberian" origin is fantastical and whose traditions, practices and language are lifted from well-known Soviet and post-Soviet prison-based criminal fraternities [...]. Lilin's furious reactions to those who cast doubt on his criminal credentials can best be explained by the fact that some elements of the book do reflect his own experience while most of the rest is widely known in Russia to readers of quasi-fictional crime tales by Valery Karyshev and to viewers of the prison-based TV series Zona.
  • Let's just say that the childhood he describes, in a context of poverty and marginalization, is credible. Just as it is likely that it led to the natural outcome of prison. Even a brief stint with youth gangs is possible. It's the part about the mafia that's unconvincing. [...] I have met members of the Russian mafia. Those who are killers certainly don't go around telling people about it.
    • Diciamo che l'infanzia che lui racconta, in un contesto di povertà ed emarginazione, è anche credibile. Così come è probabile che conducesse allo sbocco naturale della prigione. Anche una certa realtà di bande giovanili è possibile. È la parte sulla mafia che non convince. [...] Rappresentanti della mafia russa ne ho conosciuti. Chi è un killer non va certo a raccontarlo in giro.
    • Anna Zafesova (12 May 2009), «Quanti errori e stranezze in quelle pagine», Ilgiornale.it
  • According to Lilin, the Urkas were an ethnic minority, "descendants of the ancient Efey", who lived by hunting and robbery and who were deported from Siberia to Transnistria in the 1930s, when it was part of Romania (it would be annexed to the USSR in 1940, in the partition of Europe between Stalin and Hitler). Thus the communists would have populated the "Romanian empire", as the writer calls it, with Russian criminals, defeating the local gangs. "Absurd", laughs Pavel Polian, a Russian historian who has been studying the deportations of communism and Nazism for 25 years: "They were deported to Siberia, but not from Siberia, much less to Moldova. And the Efey never existed".
    • Secondo Lilin, gli Urca sarebbero una minoranza etnica «discendente degli antichi Efei» che viveva di caccia e rapina e che dalla Siberia venne deportata in Transnistria negli anni '30, quando era parte della Romania (sarebbe stata annessa all'Urss nel 1940, nella spartizione dell'Europa tra Stalin e Hitler). Così i comunisti avrebbero popolato «l'impero romeno», come lo chiama lo scrittore, di criminali russi sconfiggendo le cosche locali. «Assurdo», ride Pavel Polian, storico russo che da 25 anni studia le deportazioni di comunismo e nazismo: «Si deportava in Siberia, ma non dalla Siberia, meno che mai in Moldova. E gli Efei non sono mai esistiti».
    • Anna Zafesova (23 June 2009), "Fantasie siberiane. Quando Lilin si è inventato tutto", La Stampa
  • According to Lilin, the very existence of the Urkas was a state secret. An almost extinct community, which had left a deep mark, single-handedly winning the war of 1992, when Moldova, in the grip of hot post-Soviet spirits, invaded the breakaway province. In Siberian Education, it is narrated how the "Siberians" triumphed by blowing up one of the two cinemas in Bender full of soldiers. Marian Bozhesku, Ukrainian researcher and author of Transnistria 1989-1992, the most exhaustive study on the conflict, says he has never heard of this. "For us the memory of the war is still very much alive, we fought desperately. To say that criminals won it is ridiculous", says indignant Denis Poronok, who is the same age as Lilin, 31, and disputes "Nicolai's version": "The blown up cinema is a fairy tale, and there were four theaters, not two in Bender in 1992".
    • Secondo Lilin l'esistenza stessa degli Urca era un segreto del regime. Una comunità quasi estinta, che aveva lasciato un segno profondo, vincendo da sola la guerra del 1992, quando la Moldova in preda a bollenti spiriti postsovietici ha invaso la provincia separatista. In Educazione siberiana si narra del trionfo dei «siberiani», riusciti a far esplodere uno dei due cinema di Bendery pieno di militari. Marian Bozhesku, ricercatore ucraino autore di Transnistria 1989-1992, lo studio più esaustivo sul conflitto, dice di non averne mai sentito parlare. «Per noi il ricordo della guerra è ancora vivissimo, abbiamo combattuto disperatamente, dire che sono stati i criminali a vincerla è ridicolo», s'indigna Denis Poronok, che ha la stessa età di Lilin, 31 anni, e contesta la «versione di Nicolai»: «Il cinema esploso è una fiaba, e nel '92 a Bendery c'erano quattro sale, non due».
    • Anna Zafesova (23 June 2009), "Fantasie siberiane. Quando Lilin si è inventato tutto", La Stampa
  • Bender is a small town of 80 thousand inhabitants where everyone knows each other. They also know Nicolai (even though at the time he had a different surname), they remember his parents and his grandfather Boris, "a great person, he worked until the end", says a contemporary of the writer. They met when they were in their twenties and he even went to his house: "There were no icons, no weapons, no 'Siberian' objects. He was curious, he read a lot". Nothing criminal? "Never heard of him having been in prison. In fact, it was said that at a certain point he had joined the police".
    • Bendery è una città piccola, 80 mila abitanti dove tutti si conoscono. Conoscono anche Nicolai (anche se all'epoca portava un altro cognome), si ricordano i suoi genitori e il nonno Boris, «grande persona, ha lavorato fino all'ultimo», dice un coetaneo dello scrittore. Si frequentavano quando erano ventenni, è stato anche a casa sua: «Non c'erano icone, né armi, nessun oggetto "siberiano". Lui era uno curioso, leggeva molto». Nulla di criminale? «Mai sentito che fosse stato in galera, anzi si diceva che a un certo punto si fosse arruolato nella polizia».
    • Anna Zafesova (23 June 2009), "Fantasie siberiane. Quando Lilin si è inventato tutto", La Stampa
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