Volsk, USSR.(1951)
The wind wailed across the rooftops of our mining city, whistling around boarded windows and bringing with it the nip of winter to the marrow of every bone. I was conceived in this cold, as if the frost itself had inscribed my name on the record of the Volkov family. My earliest recollection was grandmother's quivering voice, reciting the Codex with lip color that was wine-stained with age: "Honor. Quality. Loyalty." Each word was a sacrament—a charm against the storm.
My father, Mikhail, moved stealthily through the house like a wolf preying. There was a death in the air; grandmother rested upstairs, fighting not only her final battle, but the accumulation of all Volkov's sins. Father held the family Codex, his knuckles pale as the snow outside. When he glanced at me, he did not look with warmth—it was with the analysis of a miner weighing the coal: was I worthy? Did I have the potential to live?
I was taught early that preparation was key. "Winter is coming, Alexei," grandmother croaked. "Those who do not prepare die first." Her threats were the stuff of legend, her tales rich with the promise of starvation and the fear of betrayal.
Outdoors, coal trucks rumble along frozen streets, men cursed with frozen lips, and bargains were struck along alleys, away from the sight of Party functionaries.
In the kitchen, the mother glided like a ghost. She rendered stale bread to thin broth, humming at times a tune of greener days—days before the writing in the Codex with blood. In a tattered family bible, between pleas for the lost, there were secrets: odd markings, how to survive, the power in a name that bound and terrorized in the same instance.
When my grandmother passed away, men invaded our house, which was full of men with their honor inscribed as tattoos. The vory v zakone, thieves with a code, dreaded even by the government, arrived with black fur hats and grave faces. Father greeted them with nods and a thick envelope. My entry into this world was mute, but unquestionable: reputation was to live. You lived or perished by the amount of respect your name had in Volsk.
At seven, I was led by my grandfather to the mines for the first time. "You discriminate clean from dirty, Alexei. Coal, friends, values—there is no room for softness." His knuckly, scarred-up hands led me to reject whatever couldn't take the weight. Quality was life itself.
The mine was a kingdom of darkness. Men were less than men under the ground. Sweat was combined with fear, and in the darkness, the distinction between criminal and comrade blurred. Grandfather separated the coal with realities, yet I glimpsed in his eyes the spark of the old Russia—a shred of hope clinging to a sense of dignity.
Out in town, organized crime was interjected right into daily life. Father was observed in the public house, where men traded vodka for indecencies and threats for allegiance. The wolf and the sword marked his wrist—a silent code. A tale, a triumph, or a chastening was told with each tattoo. Even children in Volsk understood the markings.
My mother, on the other hand, protected me from as far away as she was able. But the snow can't be kept back from slipping under the door, nor the code slipping into your marrow.
One morning, while I was chopping wood in the yard, a group of boys from the opposing Orlov family taunted us as "Codex worshippers." My face flushed with shame, but Father just observed. Later, he would remark, "You cannot teach pride, Alexei. You can teach nothing but that which must be defended."
Blood arrived early in Volsk. Battles started and finished while police officers were busy turning away. I wore my first bruise that day, and wore it as a medal.
That evening, Father came to me with a bruised coin. "That is yours," he said. "Merit earned, not born with. Don't forget that."
But I felt that there were things even the Codex couldn't protect us against. Rumors in the alley hinted at Party men to cleanse the recalcitrant family. Grandfather summoned a gathering in our small parlor, and men assembled under the broken portrait of the first Volkov boss. "We survive because we compromise. The code is not chain—it is shield, but it must yield when life requires that we do so."
I was listening, not just learning rules, but also how to maneuver. How to be a survivor in Volsk was knowing whom to trust, whom to forgiveness was due, and whom had to be killed.
*All triumph is ephemeral. Every piece, temporary. Never rest—not even in wealth.*
On my eighth name day, with winter moving back, the men summoned me at sunrise to witness a dose of justice. A robber had stolen from Volkov's granary. They pulled him in front of his father. "He that passeth sentence is the executioner," he recited, repeating grandmother's death words. As the boy from the Orlovs babbled in supplication, I looked at the cold blade in father's hand—I comprehended, prior to the act, that loyalty was paid in blood.
It was fast, and yet that sound tortured my sleep for years. That day, holding my mother's hand, I understood the true meaning of the Codex: to see the price of power, to take credit for each choice.
But not all lessons had been learned in brutality. Grandfather brought me back to the mines. "Check every load. Intelligence is nothing without control. Kingdoms fall for lack of focus." The hours dissolved into days under the ground, but I learned the importance of elimination—every impurity separated made us wealthier, harder, better able to weather the next storm.
Small incidents fathomed into memories: swapping pilfered cigarettes behind the shed; hearing the vory talk about Moscow; learning at my father how to hold secrets against the KGB. I absorbed these lessons as assiduously as my grandfather instructed me to take a measure of coal: assiduously, with attention to detail, sensing that a wrong move would precipitate disaster.
During a summer, the rumors spread to wildfire—half the town shipped off to work camps, a Party man missing. Our loyalties were tried. The Codex held us together when fear would have divided us. When a stranger's treachery almost killed my uncle, I saw my grandfather's exhibition of contained justice: quick revenge, but never too much. "Violence, Alexei, must always leave its mark. Too little, and you're a prey. Too much, and you're a thug."
Under the sanctity of my mother's kitchen, I at long last admitted fear. "I do not know that I am worthy of the Codex," I said in a whisper. She squeezed my arm. "No one is at first. But the pack lives on, not the lone wolf."
Late in the summer, an elderly bookseller arrived at our house. He handed me a bizarre tome of technical illustrations—machines, transportation networks, bizarre concepts that were aghast a quarter-century into the future. "Look at these," he winked at me. "A man with sense gets through every age." This was my secret, my glimpse into a potential future—one my family couldn't conceptualize yet.
The seasons changed. Our family enterprise flourished—coal was money, and deference was the most expensive possession we had. Even while I sat at school with Party children, I knew there was another textbook, inscribed not with words on pages, but with wounds, mysteries, and subtle threats. As the snow came back, I stood at the creaking attic window, peering out across Volsk, the town a quilted patchwork of shadow and moving lamplight. And I knew, at long last, that the Volkovs' tale was to be inscribed with the sheddings and icedowns that every winter would bring. And in the code, a promise was kept: "Every generation must build anew." I culminated a promise to myself, fists balled against the chill: I would be more than a survivor. I'd be the creator of our imperium—one choice, one lesson, one triumph at a time. *Was I real? Real enough. The tale—the ordeal—had just gotten started.*