Vladimir Kozlov, "School"

In spite of the fact that Russia (especially its periphery) has been plunged into gopnik subculture for 25 years now (one can argue it's actually 30 or 40), still little has been said and written about it, and phenomenon goes for the most part unnoticed by the beaux-arts. Granted, there are some films and books, but they usually offer either "intelligent" take on the theme, picturing gopniks as your by the book villains, or "quasi-romantic" take, where you have them as russian blood and soil heroes (the latter stance is explored by trash art, for example). So it's always interesting to read a guy who has something to say about everyday life of teenagers (late 80s in our case) without proving any moral point or making himself look good.
"School" was written in early 00s (it's Kozlov's second book, the first one being a collection of stories straightforwardly called "Gopniks"); it portrays works and days of a labour class guy from Mogilev (present-day Belarus), his works consisting of visiting school and local factory for practice, and his days - of roaming about the block, drinking "ink"(cheap fruit wine) with homies and trying to pick up with girls. Stiff educational patterns of the falling apart empire and mass alcoholism, first sex and lame football fandom, "Ласковый Май" ("Tender May") and "Кино" ("Kino") on the cassette tape, school bus excursion to Saint-Petersburg with significant predominance of shopping and drinking over sightseeing, - somewhat predictable but still exciting set of topics.
Some reviewer compared Kozlov's text to "The catcher in the rye". It's incorrect, of course. "School" is far less introspective (actually it's not introspective at all, sometimes it has almost naturalistic feel about it) than Salinger's book, far more verbose and doesn't seek to go beyond the honest and simple description of everyday's life. But it's good at what it is; the style is concise, slang is abundant and well-used, plot is all but absent and no moral lessons are to be drawn.