I was born in the village of Satyevo, in Bashkiria [an autonomous republic neighboring Tatarstan] on the border with Orenburg Oblast. It was all pretty boring and simple: when I was three, my parents got a divorce and my mother decided to move to Naberezhnye Chelny and got a job there as a doctor.

We lived in a dorm. Our whole room was smaller than my office now. I lived in Chelny from when I was three to eighteen, when I graduated from high school and lyceum.

I still remember how I spoke only Tatar as a child. In kindergarten one boy tried to explain to me what a loshad' [horse in Russian] was, and I was, like, that's an at [Tatar for horse], so we couldn't understand each other. In the evening my mother explained to me why.

These were the 1990s. I started school in in 1992. By third or fifth grade I had already understood: if you want to go out in public, you have to be friends with the gangs, and get along with everyone, too. At the same time, it was considered cool to hang out with the gangs, well, not only cool, but also necessary. This was the heyday of organized criminal groups, Hadi Taktash, and others, the 29th gang, 30th …. On the other hand, I knew not to get deeply involved, because it was a road to nowhere.

I chose the strategy of getting into the oh-so-fashionable police lyceum. It was called Kalkan. I was getting ready for the exams, and even started. I remember running down the street in the fifth grade, them telling me that I should be studying for the standard test.

So, I was studying right up to the moment our Tatar language teacher at school No. 40 brought us a flyer announcing that they were recruiting kids into the Tatar–Turkish lyceum, and there would be an exam.

I had heard about this lyceum, that it's great because the children of businessmen and journalists from Naberezhnye Chelny studied there. There was quite a competition to get in, twenty kids trying for each place. I thought that was exactly where I needed to be, because they taught four languages: Tatar, Russian, English and Turkish.

It was the top school at the time, so this idea really lit a fire under me. Fortunately, my brother was in town—he was studying at that time in Bashkiria, almost in college, and he tutored me very well. In the end, I placed pretty well, out of, I don't remember how many there were, fifteen hundred kids, or something, who took the test. I was somewhere in the upper hundred or fifty. A good result.

So, I started a completely new life from the 7th to the 11th grade, the major leagues. English and Turkish languages, a new look at mathematics, at the very methods of teaching, correspondence with people from Great Britain and America ... And next stop was Kazan or Moscow. At that time, Turkey was hip. Or, we thought, Oxford. Then we started counting our money, how much it would cost, and realized that Oxford was off the table. We decided that we needed to go to Moscow.

So I began preparing for admissions. I won a couple of Olympiads in grades 9 to 11; well, I mostly won Olympiads in Tatar, Tatar tele häm ädäbiyata [tatar language and literature]. Do you speak Tatar?

Of course. I also graduated from a Tatar–Turkish lyceum, in Almetyevsk.

Then you know it's a unique atmosphere: boys only, a boarding school, you can go home only on Saturdays. But there was still a kind of discipline. There was an eldest in the room; he was the oldest and the most emotionally mature.

There was also tormenting and bullying. But that's when I became hardened. And all the same, this whole gopnik [Russian chav] culture penetrated into the lyceum too. There were showdowns between guys who came from different gangs.

I stayed out the gopnik fights in my gang. I just remained their friend, and they were like, "oh, cool, he entered a good school. Well done."

I have only wonderful memories from this lyceum. There was a unique contingent of teachers, and we were lucky to live in that enclave and be saturated with it all.

I passed all my classes, got a gold medal, and then the plan was to go to Moscow and study there. Since I wasn't the son of a businessman of some sort ... it would've taken me million years to get a career in management in Kazan or Chelny, and I would earn a small salary there for the rest of my life. Therefore, my plan was to go to Moscow and seek out and meet the children of local officials and businessmen. Do business with them. This strategy had been proven over the years.

Which institute in Moscow?

I chose People's Friendship University: we knew people there, and we didn't know anyone at other universities, like Moscow State or the Moscow State Institute of International Relations; there was no one who could tell us what it was like there.

I had two majors to choose from at People's Friendship University: political science or law.

So, I chose the profession that could be monetized, first and foremost.

My first impression of Moscow was, of course, incredible. Even now, having moved to Kazan—we've been living here for two or three months—I recall how gigantic Moscow is. My wife and I opened Yandex.Maps to see our apartment next to Moscow State University, we remembered Sparrow Hills, saw those streets. And even the courtyard path there is often wider than an avenue in Kazan; well, they're practically the same width.

So I got to People's Friendship University and built a Tatar community there. In 2002 we registered Kardushlek [Brotherhood] as an association of students from Tatarstan and other regions. My student life was spent in Kardushlek, and it was an inspiration for associations in other universities.

And even as a student, I found all sorts of grants; I won a scholarship from the Potanin Foundation a couple of times. My goal was to get as many people as possible from Kardushlek to win that scholarship. In the first round, out of one and a half thousand straight-A students, a hundred are selected, and 14 of them were from our community. It was funny: Aleksey was standing there, and then Aliya, Eldar, Dinar, Mansur … all in a row.

How did you start in your profession?

In my sixth year I applied to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), and they called me, saying "You passed our selection, congratulations. There were five thousand of you, we only chose a few, so come in for testing." I went through six interviews and various tests, and, in the end, I got an offer with a salary of $7–8 an hour. That's how I started officially working for an international company in November 2007, thirteen years ago.

At Price, I worked in the department that deals with the purchase and sale of companies and with very wealthy people (High Net Worth Individuals). When you sell a company, you end up with a lot of money and you need to act wisely in order to preserve it, increase it, reliably leave it as an inheritance; we helped with this.

Our team began receiving many orders from the office of one rich man. My boss told me it was Iskander Kakhramonovich Makhmudov [President of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, one of the key shareholders of Aeroexpress].

As a result, at some stage they subrented me out: they paid Price, Price paid me, and I worked in their office. First, they took me on for a month; then two; then, after a three-month period, they offered a permanent job.

So I moved over to the office of the owner of Aeroexpress in Moscow. One of the managers joked: "You'll travel for free." But there was no free travel (although I never brought it up).

At first, I worked with purely legal issues, and then it started: I was taken on a project to create a hotel from scratch; everything from start to finish had to be delivered.

I was how old? ... Probably 32 then.

There were people there much older than me. Sometimes I felt that they were jealous of my fervor. I spent almost nine years there.

A one-way ticket to the airport by express train costs 500 rubles, although this year it was reduced to 300 because of the pandemic. Why is Aeroexpress so expensive?

We have a joke: all good things that happen to the company are thanks to the board of directors, and all the unpopular measures come from the CEO.

In fact, it's more of an image thing for Moscow than financial. That is, it was created in the middle of the 2000s. Back then, imagine Moscow: it was one continuous traffic jam, getting to the airport. It was a living hell. At that time, Aeroexpress was, of course, solving important transportation problems. And then these taxis appeared, endless ride sharing ...

The economic situation changed a lot, and the costs incurred by the company during the construction at the very beginning of the project are long-term, 15–25 years—they all remain. So, the aftermath is still occurring and affects pricing.

Of course we discussed all those issues, but nothing can be done about it. Especially this last year, when they stopped working altogether due to the coronavirus. Revenue fell completely.

In Kazan, Aeroexpress was a status project from the beginning. Moscow and Kazan are two completely different stories. Obviously, in Kazan, a family of four can take a car and travel much more cheaply from anywhere in Kazan in 20 minutes. In Moscow, you definitely won't make it to the airport in twenty minutes from downtown. It's not the same at all.

And you should know, I wasn't really working at Aeroexpress; I served the interests of its owners, Iskander Makhmudov and Andrey Bokarev. Aeroexpress was not my main focus; it was one of the assets that we oversaw. That is, we were responsible for personal questions of shareholders and for some of their business questions.

How did you come to start your own business?

Looking back, I always had a dream of having my own consulting business. When I entered the board of directors, I realized that I had probably reached the top there. And I wanted more freedom; I wanted to do my own thing.

Hanging out with adults, I just saw their old photos, from when they were young, and where they are now ... it was hard to imagine myself like that. I saw people who have been sitting in open-space offices their entire lives. I never had a clear role model for myself among anyone I was acquainted with.

In May 2019, while on a business trip, I went on an Umrah [off-season Hajj to Mecca and Medina] and had the thought: if it would be good for me, please make the road to creating my own company easier.

I had no idea how to make it happen, but nevertheless, I started out going more or less step by step, like in Ironman [the triathlon competition]. We do that a little bit at a time, as well. Oh yeah, I'm a nationally ranked athlete in triathlon, too.

When the pandemic hit in March, in April everyone shut down, and we started working and began developing very actively.

I made the decision to create my company in January. I slept for three to four hours a night; it was invigorating. Developing a business is fascinating. At the same time, all my previous commitments at work were still there. It was an exciting time.

By July, after looking at the results of April, May, and June, I realized that we had made a lot of money. Then I seriously began looking for a way out.

To Tatarstan?

Well, when all this happened, my children started studying online. It was time for Madina, my eldest daughter, to go to school. The time had come to decide. They say that the biggest gift parents can give is to pass their culture on to their children. Many of the values that moved me forward are related to culture.

The first task is for children to develop in a cultural environment. There are international schools in Moscow too, but we needed an international school with a large Tatar component. And this was extremely important for us. I believe that it's important for children to have that, at least in elementary school. I still remember my Tatar language teachers in our school; I can still see them.

Considering that the pandemic wasn't going away and I could work remotely in Moscow, we decided to go all in here, in Tatarstan. It was interesting: there were only two places left in school for admission, we decided—if she gets in, then its fate. And my wife said to me: "Madina got in, and Davlet has a spot in the kindergarten, what are we going to do?" This was in July, and we decided: "Let's do it."

Literally last Saturday there was a concert and Madina sang the song "Ai Bylbylym." Her teacher said that she chose that song herself. And for us, that's just like so heartwarming. I think she was the only child at the concert who sang a Tatar song.

Is living in Kazan difficult after Moscow?

Of course there were difficulties after the move; I can't say it was easy. First, at work, I was still on the board of directors of several companies, always had to sign something. In fact, I still go to Moscow every month, have meetings with clients about work stuff.

But we began speaking Tatar more often; my children see mosques more often; we went straight to Pechän Bazary [Hay Bazaar] when we moved, and for the children it was a cultural shock. They saw [someone dressed like] Şihabetdin Märcani [19th century Tatar theologian and historian] walking around and were like, who is that? They're fascinated by everything. Lake Kaban—we love to feed ducks there. Kamala theater.

So that they feel good about it, so that their small homeland will gain a foothold. They also often remember Moscow, like when Davlet offends someone, he "went to Moscow" he says. He says we're Muscovites.

I think it's a good when children move around, so they become adaptive. The only stable thing in the world today—and this will be more so in the future—is that things are always changing.

Is it hard to find clients in Tatarstan?

Our company LWM, Lenar Wealth Management, now has about 50 people. And thanks to the relations we were careful to build, we have representatives in Krasnoyarsk, Sochi, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, and Samara. And Moscow, of course. We have clients scattered all over the world.

In this regard, a good model for the republic, it seems to me, would be to educate people at an international level, so that they settle here and spend their money in Tatarstan.

Of course, there's less capital here. It's much easier to find a client that's a dollar millionaire in Moscow than here in Kazan.

In Moscow, they're just regular people sitting next to you in a cafe, in Starbucks, your age, holding a planning meeting on their online platform.

Here they're "unique" people, show-offs, everyone thinks they're the coolest. You have to make an appointment to meet with them. It's a separate caste that lives apart. There's more segregation here, and when you're in both worlds, they can look at you weird, like who are you with? I'm not very comfortable with this, to be honest. I'm not used to it ...

Warren Buffett had a cola at McDonald's just because he wanted to have a Happy Meal day with his grandson—that's more my style.

That's the way it is in Tatarstan, and this narrows the turnover of money in the republic. In this aspect, of course it's much easier in Moscow.

What are you doing now in Tatarstan besides work?

In Kazan I became interested in the art of swordplay, and this is a deep concept, indeed. I mean, the tatarlar [Tatars] stopped Genghis Khan's army twice in 1220. He was able to break through and destroy everything only on his third try. They obviously had military and managerial power, but if you ask how to represent Tatar culture, then ... I studied at People's Friendship University, and we had cultural festivals for peoples from around the world and the peoples of Russia. The Caucasians came out, respectively, with their cartridges and daggers. We got some cultural items of from the embassy, the Plenipotentiary Representation of Tatarstan in Moscow. We were given a blue tubeteika [Tatar skullcap] (this is in the best-case scenario; they're usually greenish). Or pink shirts and green camisoles. I never saw my grandfather dressed like that, in such tasteless clothes.

It's hard to imagine that the head of the administration of the Tatarstan district or some respectable person, a merchant, dress like that.

Something manly. I'm not even talking about the army, but manly achievements. No manly attributes exist in the modern history of Tatarstan. So I began to take a deeper interest and search, and I started looking at martials art among other peoples. I saw that there are a couple of people in Tatarstan who also do that. We found each other and meet to practice every once in a while.

So you feel comfortable in Tatarstan? Is it convenient to work from Kazan?

For me, the most important thing is for my family to be comfortable, and business for me ... My calling right now is to try to make it all online. So, in this regard, it's great in Kazan.

And I want to leave my mark here, maybe with the tradition of mastering men's sports, just not kurash [a Central Asian folk wrestling style]. I'd like to improve financial literacy here, that would be very cool.

My goal is to make my own branch here with partners who would never allow for financial pyramid schemes, who would protect the local population from obvious stupid financial decisions. That's what I want to achieve in Tatarstan, other than personal family things.