He went into business in the eighties, as a pioneer in the cooperative movement. With his brothers, he rented plastic-making factories, bought raw supplies, ordered stamping equipment, and produced various household goods that in those days sold like hotcakes. This was post-Brezhnev time, when small businessmen were not persecuted as much.

Later, in 1985, it turned out that the Soviet laws did not specifically interdict this activity.

So those who made money through their work and drive were not the lawbreakers - the police and the State Attorney's office were.

Cherney recalls that his first hundred thousand dollars were the toughest ones to make. "I worked for two or three years, and I still couldn't make it. I would look at the books at the end of the year - still in the red, more expenses than profits. I liked traveling, I went all over the Soviet Union, and I was helping out with sports activities a lot."