Siberia

In 2000, Nikolaï Maslov, a night watchman and self-taught artist, asked Emmanuel Durand, a French book salesman in Moscow, to look at three panels from a graphic novel he had drawn. Stunned by the intensity of the work, Durand offered Maslov a modest advance to quit his job and finish the book. The result is this extraordinary visual portrayal of Russian life and spirit.

Awash in alcohol from the first pages to the last, Siberia charts Maslov’s bleak path through the labyrinths of the Soviet system, from the desolate Siberian countryside, to military service with the Red Army in Mongolia, to the psychiatric hospital where he was admitted after his brother’s death. Drawn entirely in pencil on paper, the book’s nuanced gray tones document with unremitting clarity and delicate nuance the austere Siberian landscape, the bad vodka, the daily brawls, the cynicism and violence of life in Siberia, but also the perseverance and hope of those in this often neglected but fascinating part of the world.Nikolaï Maslov was born in Novosibirsk (Siberia) in 1954. The grandson of an illiterate peasant massacred by the NKVD, Maslov took drawing lessons before being interned for alcoholism. While working as a night watchman, Maslov began drawing an autobiographical graphic novel. Invited in residence in Angoulême to complete his work, Maslov devoted a year to extending and deepening the themes in his work, eventually creating Siberia.