It's a move that would do Tolstoy proud: while his Russian oligarch friends are losing billions, German Sterligov chose to leave financial markets behind, living off the land in farm in the country north of Moscow.

The financial crisis has cost some Russian tycoons their fortunes, but one of Russia's first multimillionaires says he hasn't lost a kopek.

That's because German Sterligov, a onetime boy wonder of Russia's young market economy, dropped out of the business world years ago and started raising sheep and other livestock on two farms outside Moscow.

"We're in clover compared to the oligarchs," he said recently. "I've got 100 sheep, a horse, a cow, some poultry and goats."

Now Sterligov, 41, is promoting an electronic barter scheme for commodities trading that, he claimed, could save Russia's foundering financial system.

But he has no plans, he said, to return to the traditional capitalist road, saying his luxury-loving former colleagues among the superrich will soon see the virtues of simplicity and self-sufficiency.

At Sterligov's log cabin about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northwest of Moscow one recent afternoon, hens pecked grain from the snow in front of the porch, as he scolded his four sons — aged 4 to 12 — for neglecting to feed the chickens properly and for "messing up the stove."

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