Siberian Education by Nicolai Lilin Read Free Book Online

or dark blue, very warm and comfortable. The jackets were of two kinds: either the classic quilted fufayka, which half the population wore in the days of the USSR, because it was the jacket that was given to workers, or the tulup , which had an enormous fur collar that you could pull right up to your eyes to protect yourself against the harshest cold. I wore the fufayka , because it was lighter and allowed me to move fairly freely. The shoes were heavy, and fur-lined, and there were also long woollen socks to ward off frostbite. On your head you’d wear a fur hat: I had a lovely one, made of white ermine – very warm, light and comfortable.
    In summer we wore ordinary flannel trousers, always with a belt, in accordance with the Siberian rule. The belt is connected with the tradition of the hunters, for whom it was much more than a lucky charm: it was a request for help. If a hunter got lost in the woods, or had an accident, he would tie his belt round the neck of his dog and send it home. When the others saw the dog return, they would know he was in trouble. With the trousers we wore a shirt – usually white or grey, with a straight collar and with the buttons on the right – called kosovorotka , ‘crooked collar’. Over the shirt we wore light jackets, grey or black, and very coarse, of military issue. The last item of our summer outfit was the legendary hat of the Siberian criminals, a kind of national symbol, known as ‘eight triangles’. It consists of eight triangular segments of cloth sewn together to form a domed cap with a button on top; it also has a short peak. The colour must always be pale, or even white. In Russia this kind of hat is called a kepka , and there are many varieties. ‘Eight triangles’ is only the Siberian version. The real eight triangles of a bold and cunning criminal must have the peak bent well back, and rounded, not broken, so as to form a ridge in the middle. As a sign of contempt you break your enemy’s peak, bending it till it goes out of shape.
    My eight triangles had been a present from my uncle; it was an old hat and I liked it for that very reason.
    The eight triangles was such an important hat that it generated stories and idioms. In criminal slang the phrase ‘to wear eight triangles’ means to commit a crime or to participate in the organizing of criminal activities. The phrase ‘to keep eight triangles up’ means to be on the alert, to be worried about some danger. ‘To put eight triangles on the back of your head’ means to behave aggressively, to prepare for an attack. ‘To wear eight triangles askew’ means to show calm, relaxed behaviour. ‘To tip eight triangles over your eyes’ means to announce the need to disappear, to hide. ‘To fill eight triangles’ means to take something in abundance.
    Often I really did fill my hat, for example when we boys went to see Aunt Marta, a woman who lived alone on the river bank and was famous for her jams. We used to take her the apples we had stolen from the collective farms on the other side of the river, and help her peel them, so she could make the jam. She would bake the pirozhki , little biscuits she filled with jam. We would all sit in a circle on little stools in the yard in front of her house, with the kitchen door wide open, through which we could always see something boiling on the fire; we would fish the apples out of the bags, peel them with our knives and then throw them into a big pot with water in it. When it was full, we would carry it into the house, using two long planks of wood which we hooked onto the pot like handles. Aunt Marta was very fond of us. She gave us plenty to eat – we would always go home with full stomachs and with pirozhki in our hands. I used to put mine in my hat and eat them as I walked.
    The eight-gored hat is the subject of many proverbs, poems and songs of the criminal tradition. Since I used to spend a lot