Sergei Petrov cuts a diminutive and modestly dressed figure in the midst of the crowd in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton hotel in central Moscow. That's at first impression surprising because Petrov is the founder of Rolf, Russia's biggest car dealership. He is probably the richest man in the room by far, and Russians are hardly known for understatement when it comes to displaying their wealth. 

As a taxi driver who built a car dealership empire, its not only Petrov's clothes that buck the trend. He grew rich from selling cars, one of Russia's most corrupt businesses, but he worked at making the business transparent, concentrating on quality of service rather than nefarious schemes. 

"We had to be strong and competitive, and we civilized this business," Petrov said. "In 1992, importing cars was little more than a smuggling operation, and people didn't know how to make real money. But we always tried to do it legally; later other companies followed us."

Today, Rolf has 27 showrooms in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Business is flourishing. The 2008 crisis hurt Rolf along with everyone else, but in 2010, the company's turnover was already back to $4 billion, even if profits were halved. 

Petrov is a poster boy for the potential for business geared toward Russia's rapidly growing middle class. 

"Is Russia better today?" he asked rhetorically. "Yes, things are better than when we set out on this path 20 years ago, but we hoped for much more." 

Taxi Entrepreneur 

Perestroika and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union forced everyone in Russia to rely on their own resources. Petrov had been running the driver pool at Moscow construction company Mosinzhstroy, but left in 1991 to set up his own company providing drivers to many of the international companies moving into Russia.

"We had a fleet of cars and the international companies needed reliable drivers. I drove one and helped the clients carry their cases," Petrov said. 

Petrov obviously got on very well with his clients, because when he approached the head of Mitsubishi Russia for a soft loan to expand his fleet, he was instead given 40 new cars imported from Finland with no down payment and no collateral; a loan he was able to pay off almost immediately as the business flourished. A year later, the newly established Rolf won a tender to become the first official Mitsubishi car dealer in Russia. 

Despite the economic chaos and hyperinflation wracking the country at the time, Rolf grew extremely fast. Not everyone had been ruined by the collapse of the old system; Rolf's first customers were high government officials and the newly minted "Russian mafia," mostly traders capitalizing on the mismatch between Soviet-era valuation on goods and assets and those in the international markets. 

"We earned enormous money [in the early 1990s]," Petrov said. "After Yeltsin introduced trade exemptions for charities as way of funding their work, we were approached by one and imported the cars under this scheme without duties. We had to pay a third of the duties and were making about $20,000 per sale. It was a lot for a small company like ours." 

The first half of the 1990s operated on this huge arbitrage and made multimillionaires out of fast-moving businessmen overnight. "Luxury goods was the only stable market then. The fish were there - mainly high government officials, oligarchs and mafia," Petrov said. "The rest of society, about 80 percent of the population, had nothing." 

However, as the economy began to pick up, the car market slowly expanded, and by the late 1990s, Rolf had made Mitsubishi the best selling car in Russia outside the luxury segment. 

The 1998 crisis was another blow, but it hurt Rolf less than its competitors, as Petrov had already built up several business lines. In addition to retailing cars, the company sold them wholesale to companies, serviced them and had a second-hand sales unit. Competitors concentrating solely on importing were forced to slash costs, but Rolf could sustain itself on its other businesses to absorb the losses from devaluation. 

Fear vs. Greed

During the first six months of 2008, Russia briefly became the biggest car market in Europe, selling 1.65 million units to overtake former champion Germany. Then the latest crisis hit. Despite the widespread economic problems, sales of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles were up 30 percent in 2010, according to David Thomas, chairman of the Association of European Businesses (AEB). The uplift continues this year, and Russia is set to take back the crown in 2015, according to industry experts. 

As it already represents many of the world's leading brands - including an increasing number of domestically produced foreign brands such as Ford, Toyota and Volkswagen - Rolf will ride this wave. But building up the business has not been easy. 

First, the company has always been forced to grow using retained earnings. "We've never gone to the banks for finances. The cost of money is so high that if you take loans there is no profit," Petrov said. "The only financing we have ever taken was from Mitsubishi, when we started importing more than 100,000 cars a year in 2007."

Second, there is the bureaucracy, especially in the import business. Petrov's solution to this snafu was to build his own car import terminal in St. Petersburg, which takes all logistics out of the hands of the customs service, leaving them only to carry out inspections. This smooths the supply of product to his dealership network. 

However, Russia's lawlessness has been the biggest obstacle. Organized crime reportedly controlled Russia's car distribution networks throughout the 1990s, and imports arrived via schemes designed to avoid what were crippling import duties. However, Petrov declares that he stuck to his principles and insisted his cars were brought in legally. 

"It was a battle of greed vs. fear - and fear won," Petrov said. "When we started selling Audis my sales staff were de-motivated. Other dealers could offer a $2,000 discount on any car compared to our prices." However, when Vladimir Putin took over as president and threw oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky into jail for tax evasion, Russian companies started to "go white." The message to business was clear: pay your taxes or else. 

NATIONALITY: RUSSIAN

AGE: 57

CIVIL STATUS: MARRIED

Born in the city of Orenburg near the Ural mountains in 1954, Sergei Petrov became a military pilot; he was forced to quit in 1982, after the KGB accused his unit of "anti-communist activities." He moved to Moscow and re-trained at the Soviet Trade University, graduating in trade relations in 1987. In 1991, he set up his own company providing drivers to many of the international companies moving into Russia. In 1991, Rolf company was founded and became the first official Mitsubishi car dealer in Russia.