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 his mother gave him when he was 14. He is currently unemployed.