Signs of a Russian Thaw (Toward Business)

And business was good. A year earlier, Mr. Telkov, who has tightly cropped brown hair and the shoulders of a hockey player, traveled to Guangzhou, on China’s southern coast — he speaks Mandarin, along with Arabic and English — to attend a trade show and meet with local fabric manufacturers. He negotiated a production contract on the spot. By cutting out the middlemen, Mr. Telkov was able to sell fabric for less than half the price charged by his more-established Russian competitors: around $5 per linear meter, as opposed to $12. In less than a year, Mr. Telkov had recouped his start-up capital of around $1 million and had a fleet of trucks, three warehouses and 18 employees. “I saw no limits to how big it could get,” said Mr. Telkov, now 33.

That May morning, not long after Mr. Telkov got to his warehouse, a convoy of speeding cars pulled up. Out came 10 police officers, some carrying automatic weapons. The officers told Mr. Telkov that he was under suspicion of copyright violations and that they would have to confiscate some of his goods as evidence.

Other men in plain clothes walked around and pointed to rolls of fabric: Take this, take that. The search lasted the whole day and continued into the next. In the end, the police carried away 527 rolls of fabric. Mr. Telkov was confused, not to mention panicked: a big furniture exhibition in Moscow was two days away, and he had just lost 80 percent of his inventory. He went from one government office to another, as he put it, “knocking on doors and saying, ‘Guys, you stole my goods, where are they?’ ” He got no answers.

Two months later, in July, investigators officially charged Mr. Telkov with copyright infringement. The indictment cites designs for five styles of fabric that Mr. Telkov had supposedly stolen; among them was a leopard-print pattern, as well as one that resembled a slab of marble. It was funny, absurd even, but it was also uncomfortably serious. If found guilty, Mr. Telkov could spend up to six years in prison.

Some 100,000 Russian businesspeople are either in prison or have been subject to criminal prosecution. Among the most famous is Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the former head of the Yukos oil company, who had been in prison for more than a decade until he was unexpectedly released this month by President Vladimir V. Putin. The pardon, coming as it did on the cusp of the Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi, Russia, was viewed more as a political expedient than as a harbinger of reform.

Mr. Telkov says that in his situation, investigators seemed more interested in pressuring him to plead guilty than in building a case; he says he was promised a suspended sentence, in which he would avoid prison but lose his confiscated goods. That’s how Russian businesspeople who find themselves in the middle of such cases often choose to plead. But Mr. Telkov was, simply put, a nuisance, filing requests and demanding to see the fabric that had been taken from him. If someone wanted to intimidate him or wear him down, it wasn’t working.

Finally, in January, at the request of investigators, a judge ordered Mr. Telkov arrested and held in pretrial detention. He was put into a cell with 10 other men, most of whom were facing drug charges. As Mr. Telkov remembers, investigators suggested that it was his own fault — if he would only make a deal, he could go home.

Weeks passed, then months. Mr. Telkov’s wife, Adilya, said she was sure that the court would see the absurdity of the case and release her husband. “At first I was absolutely certain that if not at this hearing, then the next one. If not there, then one more,” she said. After a few months, though, she said she “stopped being naïve.”

A Well-Placed Advocate

When Boris Titov heard about Mr. Telkov’s case, it struck him as a clear reminder of why his job is necessary. Mr. Titov, who holds the official title of presidential commissioner for entrepreneurs’ rights, was appointed to his position — which reports directly to Mr. Putin — in June 2012. Fighting corruption and easing the way for business are among the main priorities, at least in rhetoric, of Mr. Putin’s current economic agenda. After years of oil-fueled growth and rising consumption, the economy is slowing, with growth in gross domestic product falling to just over 1 percent. Kremlin officials hope that an improved climate for small business will help save the country from a prolonged period of stagnation, thus preserving social and political stability.

DealBook: Dutch Bank ABN Amro Takes Step Toward an I.P.O.

The Boss: SolarCity’s Chief, on a Turn Toward the Sun

By age 12, I was teaching ballroom dancing at my aunt’s dance studio. Jazz was my favorite music. When I was 17, I began my first business, which distributed homeopathic medications, and spent a fair amount of time on the road visiting communities to sell them. I almost got expelled from school because I was attending so few classes. But I did graduate, thanks to the good graces of the principal.

In June 1998, I traveled to San Jose, Calif., to play for South Africa’s national team competing in the underwater hockey world championships. In underwater hockey, players wear a mask, fins and a snorkel, and dive to the bottom of the pool and compete to pass the puck. I became interested in the sport, which is fast-moving and great fun, because my brother Peter also played.

I liked California so much that I decided to move to the United States to start a technology business. Together with my older brother Russell, who had been working in Silicon Valley, we started a company called Everdream that provided software for companies to maintain their computers remotely.

At first, the two of us ran the company from our rented house in Santa Cruz, Calif., and the next year, in 1999, we secured our first funding. Soon after that, our brother Peter, a software engineer, joined the business. Eventually, we realized that our stand-alone business model was not feasible for the long term. In 2007, the company was acquired by one of our corporate partners, Dell Inc.

Even before the sale, we had been working on an idea for a solar business. Our cousin, Elon Musk (our mothers are twins), who founded PayPal, suggested that we investigate clean energy. We started SolarCity on July 4, 2006, to symbolize our commitment to becoming independent of fossil fuels. Elon, who is the chief executive of SpaceX (the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation), and of the all-electric car company Tesla Motors, is chairman of SolarCity.

We decided to build on our expertise in providing remote services and to focus on distributing solar energy. We install solar panels free, then sell the energy they generate to customers, often at a lower rate than they pay their utility providers. We have more than $1.7 billion in backing from investors including banks and companies like Honda North America and Google. We have grown to more than 2,800 employees in 14 states. Last December, SolarCity began trading publicly.

We also provide solar services to large companies, including eBay, Walgreen and Wal-Mart Stores, to more than 300 schools and universities and to more than two dozen home builders. We recently helped a school district in the Central Valley of California convert to solar power, and save enough on its energy bills to be able to resuscitate its music program.

But we still have a long way to go, because solar energy supplies less than 1 percent of America’s energy needs. Tax incentives, just as they have for most energy sources of the past century, have helped make solar energy affordable and attract investors needed to expand operations.

My other job is being the father to two young boys, 4 and 5. Their mother is my wife, Madeleine, who was my high school sweetheart. In my spare time, I still love to play underwater hockey, but my mission is to change the way people get their electricity and provide more affordable clean energy.

Fair Game: Four Paths Toward a Better 2013 in Business

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In Campaign Donations, DLA Piper Skews Toward Obama

Lawyers at the nation's biggest law firms are voting with their wallets - and President Obama is the clear winner.