As Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man, turned 40 last June, his mother wrote a poem for his birthday which contained the lines: "For now the luck follows you and the money rains on you. But it could all be different (one day)." The day it all became different was October 25 2003, when Mr Khodorkovsky, the former chief executive of Yukos, Russia's leading oil company, was arrested at gunpoint on his private jet and jailed on charges of fraud and tax evasion. His trial, which began yesterday marks an astonishing fall from grace for one of the most prominent businessmen in Russia's post-communist history. Signs of his former political connections are prominently displayed in the private school just outside Moscow founded by Mr Khodorkovsky and run by his father. There, on top of a TV set in a billiard room, are two photographs - one of Mr Khodorkovsky talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin, the other a signed portrait of Mr Putin. The vast 19th century estate, turned into a lyceum for the children of Yukos workers, is a reminder of the wealth that Mr Khodorkovsky enjoyed less than a year ago. As the principal shareholder in Yukos he was worth Dollars 15bn (Pounds 8.25bn) according to Forbes magazine. But his parents, Boris and Marina, wish he had never found such riches. Marina, a grey-haired and neatly dressed woman, says: "This money brought us nothing but worry and fear. "I know the country I live in. Every morning I wake up, the first thing I do is turn on the radio fearing to hear the worst. From the very beginning I knew it was going to end in tears. And I told him so but he was an optimist." The Khodorkovskys were not used to money or privi lege. They worked in a Moscow factory which made high-precision machinery and lived in a 46 square metre, one-bedroom flat in a standard Soviet block. Like most Soviet Jews, they lived in apprehension of the state. Mrs Khodorkovsky says: "People of our generation knew people who have been through Stalin's labour camps. But Mikhail was part of a different generation that was more free. They of course knew about all these horrors, but it was not part of their genetic memory." Born in 1963, 10 years after Stalin's death, the future Yukos chief graduated from Mendeleev Institute in Moscow in 1986 - the year president Mikhail Gorbachev launched the country on the path of perestroika and glasnost. Many bright Russians headed west, but Mr Khodorkovsky started to climb a career ladder at home. In the twilight of the Soviet Union, when cynicism corroded the entire system, Mr Khodorkovsky joined Komsomol - a young Communist party league - and became one of its most active members. Komsomol provided protection and connections for one of Mr Khodorkovsky's first business ventures, set up to provide scientific and technical research for Soviet factories. But it also provided a clever mechanism of turning non-cash roubles - used as accounting units under the Soviet planning system - into real cash. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, Mr Khodorkovsky had the money and political connections to benefit from the controversial privatisations which transferred colossal natural resources into the hands of a small group of tycoons, in return for loans they provided to a cash-strapped government. Mr Khodorkovsky's Menatep bank both arranged the auction for Yukos and ended up as the sole bidder. Having seen off foreign and domestic would-be bidders, he paid just over Dollars 300m, possibly borrowed from the state, for a company that is worth Dollars 16bn. When Mr Putin came to power, he sent a clear message to the oligarchs: you can keep your money if you stay out of politics. Most got the message. Mr Khodorkovsky refused to play by the rules. Unlike other oligarchs, he did not splash out on huge villas in France, football clubs or Faberge eggs. His lifestyle was modest for a man of such wealth. But his money gave something else - the sense of supreme self-confidence that contrasted with his parents' residual fear of state authority. He has paid for that sense of invincibility with his freedom. It may yet cost him his fortune too. "He forgot what country he lives in," one of Mr Khodorkovsky's peers commented at the time of his arrest. The eight months that Mr Khodorkovsky has spent in detention have served as a painful reminder to him, his partners and, above all, his parents, who have little hope their son will be acquitted. Boris says: "Seeing our only son, who we believe is innocent, behind the bars in handcuffs is our worst nightmare come true." Trial halts, Page 9 Background, www.ft.com/yukos