"FROM tiny acorns mighty oaks do grow" could be the motto of Andrei Zaborsky's AZ firm, a successful Russian business that runs on batteries.
"Batteries are like bread, you need them every day," said Andrei (35), who back in Soviet times when the most basic items were in short supply, often used to find himself desperate for a battery so he could play tapes of his beloved rock and roll.
Thus when private entrepreneurs were given their freedom in 1992, the former French language student and employee of the state travel agency Intourist knew exactly what he wanted to do. He launched AZ to provide Russia's long suffering shoppers with life's little essentials, starting with the humble battery.
Now he is a New Russian, a big business employing over 100 "people. His advertising is plastered all over Moscow and his batteries are on sale in kiosks across the capital as well as a string of provincial cities. Last year his batteries generated a turnover of $12 million.
His first oak is sufficiently established for him to plant a second acorn. His next project is to provide the public with another small but necessary item - the light bulb.
I met Andrei in his office on the Garden Ring Road in down town Moscow. He sat in a black leather swivel chair, sipping sparkling mineral water. He was surrounded by laptop computers and plastic palm trees. We could have been in Manhattan.
Andrei admits he broke the law in a small way when he was starting out. He bought batteries which were past their sell by date and passed them off as fresh ones. "They were cheap. I, had no choice. I broke the law from poverty," he said. "Now I am determined to work within the framework of the law."
Like many Russian businessmen trying to make their fortunes, Andrei works from early morning to the small hours of the following morning and has little time to enjoy his wealth. In any case, it is not safe to be ostentatious, so he banks in Switzerland and lives modestly at home.
He has a three room flat in the leafy suburb of Chertanovo but no Dacha (country cottage). His BMW limousine was stolen so he drives a Russian made car. Occasionally he allows himself a drink in one of Moscow's flashy new night clubs. But he says: "You cannot really relax here.
His biggest luxury is travelling with his wife Olga. "For years I worked for Intourist but I was never allowed to go anywhere," he said. "Before that I was a translator in Cambodia but you can't call that travelling. It was more like military service Now I have a real thirst to see the world."
He has been to New York and countries in Europe including Denmark, Germany, France and Italy. Two years ago, he stayed in Greece longer than he intended because he was being threatened by petty racketeers back in Moscow. "I was inexperienced, I got scared," he said.
Now he is calmer, relying on, his own security guards and knowing he can call the Federal Security Service (the former KGB) if he needs extra protection against the Mafia.
He is a patriot and wants to invest in his homeland but would probably flee abroad if old style Communism returned. In December, he voted for Yabloko, the party of the market reformer, Grigory Yavlinsky. But in June, although he is angry with President Yeltsin over the war in Chechnya, he will support his bid for re election because, as he puts it, "only Yeltsin can block the Communists".
Andrei believes capitalism has taken root in Russia and can survive light winds of change. But his oak is still growing. He fears it could come down in a political hurricane.