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It was in a country still ravaged by the Second World War that Boris's father Jakob married Maria, a widow whose first husband had been ambushed and shot by German soldiers in a partisan skirmish. Together they set out to raise their children as best they could amid grinding poverty.

Their flimsy mud house was no match for the howling winter wind, and they paid a tragic price: one son and then another succumbed to the freezing cold.

But Jakob had a plan. Working nights at a brick factory, he received his pay--in bricks. It took six years to earn enough bricks to build a house and raise his family to what seemed a new level of luxury. Finally the wind was outside and not inside, and Jakob and Mary had a separate room of their own.

And when a baby boy was born, on December 12, 1953, Jakob vowed that he would keep this son alive whatever it took. He did more than that. He bequeathed to his son Boris the determination to follow his dreams, a determination that would stay with him long after the time came for leaving the nest, a determination that would carry him all around the world on his voyage of discovery.