Nicolai Lilin Николай Лилин
Lilin in 2011
Born	Nikolai Yurievich Verzhbitsky (1980-02-12) 12 February 1980 (age 44) Bender, Moldavian SFSR, Soviet Union
Occupation	Writer tattoo artist television presenter
Language	Italian
Citizenship	Italian
Period	Contemporary
Genres	Novel Biography
Years active	since 2009
Notable works	Siberian Education: Growing up in a Criminal Underworld (2009) Free Fall: A Sniper's Story from Chechnya (2010)
Website
nicolaililin.it

Lilin claims to be the descendent of nomadic, christianised, formerly tiger-venerating indigenous people from southern Siberia who adorned themselves with tattoos meant to symbolise their life experiences and to serve as identification, a practice dating back 5,000 years.^[2][3] These natives, which he calls "Efei", would raid Indian and Chinese caravan convoys in Siberia until they were purged by tsarist forces.^[4][2] A splinter group called "Urkas" took refuge in the taiga and resisted all attempts at subjugating them until finally being defeated by the communists.^[4] By order of Stalin, the Urkas were deported to Bender, Moldova in 1938.^[5] In an interview with Vanity Fair, Lilin stated that the Urkas were sent to do the Soviet regime's "dirty work" in ridding the city of pro-European Jews, Ukrainian nationalists, Romanians and Moldovans.^[1]

Lilin's claims regarding his heritage have been disputed. Historian Pavel Polian noted that the Efei never existed, and that the victims of population transfer in the Soviet Union were sent to Siberia, but never from there.^[6] Anthropologist Michael Bobick and Kommersant journalist Elena Chernenko further noted that Stalin could not have deported the Urkas to Bender in 1938, as the city was still under Romanian rule at that time.^[7][5] According to Lilin's uncle, Vitaly, the Verzhbitskys originated in Poland, and settled in Bender during the 19th century.^[8]

Lilin was born Nikolai Yurievich Verzhbitsky to Yuri and Lilia in Bender, Moldavian SSR.^[8] He was named after a great-grandfather who was executed in front of his family.^[9] He describes a poverty-stricken childhood with no bathroom and where gas and electricity were considered luxuries.^[10]

Lilin claims that at the age of 12, with the outbreak of the Transnistria War, he was handed a firearm for the first time, and was used as "baby intelligence".^[11] He alledges that during the conflict he lost an uncle and a cousin to a gang of neo-Nazis lead by Andriy Parubiy.^[12] He states that after the war, he took part in a gang war alongside his father, who was a bank robber. His parents separated after his father suffered three assassination attempts and moved to Greece, while his mother moved to Italy, leaving Lilin with his grandparents.^[13][14]

Lilin has repeatedly stated that he was a troubled child, claiming that at the age of 12 he was incarcerated in a maximum security juvenile prison for attempted murder after stabbing a drug addict in self-defence. He also claims that he maimed a man who had driven a young boy to suicide.^[13] Lilin states that he killed for the first time at age 14, with the victim being a "gypsy" drug dealer whom he shot with his grandfather's revolver.^[14][15] Still at age 14, he stabbed a boy in the back, leaving him paralysed for life.^[15]

According to Igor Popushnoy, a resident of Bender who knew Lilin since he was 19, Lilin habitually invented stories about himself, and had never served time in prison, having instead earned a living as a police officer.^[5] Another aquaintance from Bender, Viktor Dadetsky, implied that Lilin was influenced by action movies he borrowed from his video rental shop.^[5]

Lilin claims that at age 18 he began serving in the Russian army.^[9] In a Vanity Fair interview, he claimed he was drafted while studying yoga in India,^[1] while in an interview with Oliver Bullough he stated he volunteered.^[16] He further claims to have served for two years and three months in the antiterrorism corps of the GRU during the Second Chechen War.^[17][13] Some Italian sources state he served in the 56th Guards Air Assault Regiment.^[5] He stated to Bullough that he had briefly taken part in the battle of Grozny.^[16] Inquiries undertaken by Elena Chernenko however show that his name does not appear in any sources close to the Russian Ministry of Defence, and his old aquaintance Igor Popushnoy stated that he had never served in the army.^[5]

After the end of his military career, Lilin attempted to find work in Saint Petersburg, but was rebuffed for being a war veteran.^[1] Lilin later worked for a private Israeli security company as an antiterrorism consultant. His job took him to warzones like Afghanistan and Iraq,^[9] and concluded his service after his right leg was injured by a landmine in Iraq.^[18][19]

Lilin moved to Italy in 2003^[20] or 2004.^[10][21] He had originally moved to Ireland to work as a fisherman with his then girlfriend, but was tricked into going to Italy by his mother, who lied about having cancer.^[1][10] He remained there and briefly lived as an illegal immigrant after his residence permit expired. His situation remained precarious until he found employment at the Libre cultural association in Turin.^[20][22] He claims that in 2005 he also worked with the Italian police in monitoring Satanic cults, and credits himself with uncovering the presence of MS-13 in Turin.^[23]

While working for Libre, Lilin was asked to write stories for the association's website. His writings were discovered by the Einaudi publishing house, and he was commissioned to write what would become Siberian Education.^[18] The novel is based on Lilin's childhood experiences among exiled Siberian gangsters in Transnistria.^[4][24] It quickly became a bestseller in Italy, ranking number 10 on la Repubblica's list of top ten most sold books in April 2009.^[25] By July of that year, the book had sold over 50,000 copies domestically^[26] and had been published in 40 countries by 2011.^[5]

Roberto Saviano wrote a positive review in la Repubblica, which Lilin credits with popularising the novel.^[10][27][19] Saviano commented that "in order to read this book, you must ready yourself to forget the categories of good and bad as you know them and cast aside your feelings as they've been formed in your soul. You just have to read it, full stop".^[4] Irvine Welsh, writing for The Guardian, praised Lilin for writing "not so much [...] a crime biography as a detailed account of an amazing culture, one that, in the face of globalisation, is sadly disappearing in front of us. I say sadly because, despite the often extreme violence and the fetishism of knives and guns inherent in the Siberian criminal culture, it operates on higher principles than the mainstream ones pursued in the west".^[24] Richard Poplak of the National Post summarised the novel as "a bracing, true-crime curiosity that should interest those who want their understanding of the region massively shaken up, or their knowledge of knife fighting thoroughly upgraded".^[28]

The factual accuracy of the novel was disputed by numerous journalists and historians.^[9] Anthropologist Michael Bobick criticised the novel's portrayal of the city of Bender as particularly crime-ridden, and wrote of Lilin as "having 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".^[7] Former Kremlinologist and La Stampa journalist Anna Zafesova noted that "Urka" does not denote an ethnic group as portrayed in the book, but is a term dating back to 1908 referring to professional thieves. She went to Bender to investigate the claims made in the book on Siberian gang culture, and interviewed several old acquaintances of Lilin, as well as historians of the region who concurred that the story was an invention.^[6] Lilin later dismissed Zafesova's findings as motivated by jealousy over La Stampa not having been the first newspaper to interview him.^[14]

Lilin claims the novel is not an autobiography, being instead a collection of stories recollected from his childhood and the narratives of elders. Nevertheless, it has been presented as autobiographical on the covers of both the original and German editions. Per his interview with Elena Chernenko, Lilin stated that he had no control over it, and that it was done for marketing purposes.^[18] In a 2013 interview, he stated that "whoever tries to uphold or deny the truth of my book is, in any case, 'rude'. It's up to me as the author to declare whether or not what I have written is based on lived experience or not".^[29]

The novel has never been translated into Lilin's native Russian.^[30][5] Efim Shuman of Deutsche Welle wrote of allegations that Lilin had forbidden the sale of rights to sell his book in Russia and the former USSR over fears of its factual innaccuracies being exposed,^[30] while Chernenko, during her interview with him, mentioned a rumour that Lilin had prohibited the novel's translation for fear of reprisals by Russian and Moldovan criminal gangs.^[18] Lilin has denied these allegations, stating that he had approached two Russian publishing houses, but refused to sell the rights to his material because they wanted to present the novel as a denunciation of criminality and include a preface written by a convicted Russian criminal.^[31][29]

The novel was adapted into a film directed by Gabriele Salvatores in 2013. Lilin helped write the screenplay,^[20] and applied tattoos on John Malkovich in order to portray his character.^[19]

Lilin claims that he first began tattooing at the age of eight^[32] and that he was mentored in the art of traditional Siberian tattooing while serving time in a Russian juvenile prison.^[32] Lilin's old acquaintance in Bender, Viktor Dadetsky, stated that it was Lilin's mother who got him into tattoo art after sending him a tattoo machine from Italy.^[5]

Allegations of genocide in Donbas Crocus City Hall attack was carried out by ISIS in league with Ukraine, but that the final culprit was the CIA.^[12]

Regularly uses the slur Anglo-Saxon.^[12]

Denies Ukrainian statehood, saying "Ukraine is Russia".^[33] He believes that Ukraine is a pawn of America, who uses it to prevent Europe from allying with Russia and China.^[33]

He believes that the Transnistria War was caused by the intervention of Romanian mercenaries rather than being sparked by Moldovan nationalism.^[33][19]

• Lilin, Nicolai (2012). Storie sulla pelle [Stories on the Skin] (in Italian). Einaudi.
• Lilin, Nicolai (2015). Un tappeto di boschi selvaggi [A Carpet of Wild Woods] (in Italian). Rizzoli.
• Lilin, Nicolai (2017). Favole fuorilegge [Outlaw Fairy Tales] (in Italian). Einaudi.
• Lilin, Nicolai (2018). Il marchio ribelle [The Rebel Mark] (in Italian). Einaudi.
• Lilin, Nicolai (2019). Criminal Tattoos vol 1 (in Italian). Il Randagio Edizioni.
• Lilin, Nicolai (2021). Le fiabe della terra addormentata [Tales of the Sleeping Land] (in Italian). Mondadori Electa Junior.

• Lilin, Nicolai (2014). Il serpente di Dio [The Serpent of God] (in Italian). Einaudi. ISBN 8806218891.
• Lilin, Nicolai (2016). Spy story love story (in Italian). Einaudi. ISBN 8806229559.
• Lilin, Nicolai (2019). La leggenda della tigre [Legend of the Tiger] (in Italian). Einaudi.

• Lilin, Nicolai (2009). Educazione siberiana (in Italian). Einaudi. ISBN 8806195522.
  • Lilin, Nicolai (2011). Siberian Education: Growing up in a Criminal Underworld. Canongate Books. ISBN 9781847679338.
• Lilin, Nicolai (2010). Caduta libera (in Italian). Einaudi. ISBN 8806200631.
  • Lilin, Nicolai (2011). Free Fall: A Sniper's Story from Chechnya. Canongate Books. ISBN 1847679714.
• Lilin, Nicolai (2011). Il respiro del buio [Breath of Darkness] (in Italian). Einaudi. ISBN 8806208896.

• Lilin, Nicolai (2020). Putin. L'ultimo zar [Putin: The Last Tsar] (in Italian). Piemme. ISBN 8855447335.
• Lilin, Nicolai (2024). Rasputin. L'angelo dell'apocalisse [Rasputing: The Angel of the Apocalypse] (in Italian). Piemme. ISBN 8856693828.

• Lilin, Nicolai (2022). Ucraina. La vera storia [Ukraine: The True Story] (in Italian). Piemme. ISBN 8856689634.
• Lilin, Nicolai (2023). La guerra e l'odio. Le radici profonde del conflitto tra Russia e Ucraina [War and Hate: The Deep Roots of the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict] (in Italian). Piemme. ISBN 8856687690.