Andrei
Basilashvili was born in 1972. The son of a concert pianist and a bridge
engineer, he studied at the Kachaturian Academy of Music, and the State
University Chavchavadze in his hometown of Tbilisi, Georgia. He then moved
to Moscow at the age of 24. However, he was expelled from the Krushchev
University of Art and Music in his first year for radical anti-communist
views and for playing heavy metal guitar music in the middle of the night
while his college professors were trying to sleep. He flew to England
in 1999 while clinging to the undercarriage of Aeroflot flight SU442 -
the only things that saved his life in the freezing 3 hour flight were
the rabbit-skin fur gloves and hat that his mother gave him when he was
14. He is currently unemployed.
