By the age of six, Nicolai Lilin had been given his first ''pike knife'' by an uncle, and by the age of twelve, he had been convicted of attempted murder . . . Nicolai Lilin gained his ''education'' as a member of the Siberian Urkas - a small and tight-knit community of ''honest criminals'' in a forgotten corner of Eastern Europe . . . Siberian Education is his tale of an extreme childhood - exotic, violent and completely unique.