Boris Mikhailovich Ostrobrod

Most Russian retail entrepreneurs saw the 1990s chaos as obstacle. Boris Ostrobrod (Борис Михайлович Остроброд), a Soviet stadium engineer turned Israel (Израиль)i immigrant, saw pent-up demand that insiders missed: Russians would pay for quality at low prices if you didn’t betray them during crises. His distance enabled clarity. Standing in Bat-Yam looking back at Russia, he spotted what locals couldn’t—the Soviet system never delivered affordable quality, Western brands couldn’t profitably serve the mass market, and bazaar traders couldn’t build trust. So he built Sela (Сэла)—Hebrew for “rock”—a name that disguised Russian ownership when “foreign” signaled reliability. From 1991 to 2019, Boris survived three economic collapses by weaponizing adversity: freeze prices when competitors raise them (1998), launch e-commerce during downturns (2008), restructure ruthlessly when others hesitate (2014-2016). His legacy isn’t survival. It’s proof that crisis strategy matters more than crisis endurance.

First, if you want to get rich, you need to work for the poor. Second, it's pointless to deliberately choose a market—you need to do what is possible at the given moment.

The Immigrant’s Clarity #

Born in 1957 in Kamensk-Uralsky, a Soviet industrial city in the Urals, Boris trained as a mining engineer at Leningrad (Ленинградская область) State Mining Institute. For eight years he rose to chief engineer at Lenin Stadium in Leningrad, managing logistics and solving problems under chronic Soviet uncertainty. The skills seemed irrelevant to retail. They weren’t. Stadium engineering taught systems thinking—how to coordinate moving parts under resource constraints, how to improvise when suppliers failed, how to maintain operations when nothing worked as designed.

In 1987, Boris and his cousin Arkady co-founded “Blik,” a photo restoration cooperative. They charged 18 rubles per restored photo—“crazy money” in the late Soviet economy. The venture proved two things: Boris could spot arbitrage opportunities, and he could execute under ambiguity. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he emigrated to Israel in 1990 with his wife Irina and young children, settling in Bat-Yam near Tel Aviv. The immigrant pressure was immediate—new language, new culture, financial urgency. As Boris later reflected, “Since my youth, I dreamed of becoming a private entrepreneur.” Israel gave him permission. Russia would give him the market.

In 1991, Boris and Arkady founded Sela Corporation, initially importing various goods from China to Russia. At a 1992 clothing exhibition, Boris ordered four containers of Chinese down jackets. Ten-plus containers arrived instead. He was uncertain they could sell such quantities. The clothing flew off the shelves. This accidental oversupply became, in Boris’s words, “a great stroke of luck” that “launched the huge Sela mechanism.” The immigrant standing outside Russia looking in had spotted what insiders missed: massive pent-up demand for affordable quality that neither Soviet factories nor Western luxury brands could satisfy. By 1997, Sela opened its first branded retail store in St. Petersburg. The foundation was laid.

The Crisis That Built the Moat #

August 1998. Boris had barely established Sela’s retail presence—one year of stores, minimal cash reserves, everything imported and priced in dollars. Then the ruble collapsed, losing 70% of its value in weeks. The dollar tripled overnight. Every cost—inventory, rent, supplies—suddenly cost three times as much in ruble terms. Competitors across Russia raised prices 200-300% immediately. It was rational. Survival math said: match costs to revenue or die.

Boris chose differently. He froze prices for exactly one month. The decision absorbed massive losses. Every item sold at August prices represented a loss equal to the currency devaluation. His family was in Israel. His cousin Arkady was watching. Employees depended on him. Freezing prices meant risking insolvency for an abstract bet: that Russian customers, brutalized by decades of Soviet betrayal and 1990s chaos, would remember who didn’t exploit them when they were most vulnerable.

The internal pressure was extraordinary. Russian retail businesses were failing daily. Banks collapsed. The government defaulted. Keeping prices frozen while costs tripled looked like delusion. But Boris had engineered Soviet stadium operations—he understood systems breaking under pressure. His insight was strategic, not sentimental: crisis reveals who treats customers as partners versus marks. Most competitors saw August 1998 as survival threat. Boris saw it as loyalty investment opportunity.

The result was immediate and unexpected. As Boris later recalled, “All clothing was swept from shelves” despite the crisis. The frozen prices created “masses of new customers who were able to appreciate the product quality” exactly when disposable income was collapsing. Competitors who raised prices retained desperate customers. Sela gained loyal advocates. The difference compounded. When the economy stabilized in 1999, Sela accelerated growth, opening its Moscow (Москва) office and expanding the store network rapidly. The 1998 price freeze had created what competitors couldn’t replicate: a customer loyalty moat built on crisis-tested trust.

Boris later articulated the philosophy crystallized during 1998: “Кризис страшен для тех, у кого есть долги. Но если компания не тратит значительно больше, чем зарабатывает, то она способна пережить кризис—что-то ужать, от чего-то отказаться, что-то сократить.” (“Crisis is terrible for those who have debts. But if a company does not spend significantly more than it earns, then it is capable of surviving a crisis—tighten some things, give up others, reduce something.”) This wasn’t survival advice. It was offensive strategy disguised as defensive prudence: if you have no debt and positive cash flow, crisis isn’t threat—it’s competitive repositioning opportunity while overleveraged competitors collapse.

The 1998 price freeze transformed Boris from immigrant trader to crisis strategist. Every subsequent crisis followed the same pattern: find the offensive move while others play defense. The character revealed in August 1998—willingness to absorb losses for long-term positioning—became Sela’s unreplicable advantage.

Building the Vertically Integrated Empire #

From 1991 to 2019, Boris built what industry analysts called “a phenomenon on the Russian market”—the first Russian company with full-cycle operations from design to production to retail. The vertical integration wasn’t ideological. It was practical. Importing from China and selling through franchises exposed Sela to exchange rate volatility and partner reliability risk. The 1998 crisis proved that controlling the entire value chain mattered more than outsourcing for efficiency.

By 2003, Sela operated 200 corporate stores and won “Brand of the Year/Effie 2003,” external validation that the customer-first crisis strategy worked at scale. The 15-year anniversary in 2006 saw the network exceed 500 stores with expansion to Lithuania (Литва) and Poland (Польша), proving the model transferred beyond Russia. Boris’s insight about “working for the poor” if you wanted to get rich materialized as stores across secondary Russian cities where Western brands wouldn’t operate profitably.

The franchise innovation was particularly significant. Sela became the first Russian fashion company with comprehensive franchise documentation and support systems. Competitors copied the model, but Boris had first-mover advantage and crisis-tested reputation. Franchisees knew Sela survived 1998 by protecting customers, not squeezing partners.

The pattern repeated during the 2008 global financial crisis. While the economy contracted, Boris launched Sela’s online store—what he later called a “very correct strategic decision.” Most Russian retailers were closing stores. Sela was investing in e-commerce infrastructure. The offensive crisis move again: expand when competitors retreat. By 2011, Sela reached its peak—approximately 600 stores across 14 countries with roughly $200 million in annual revenue. The 1998 crisis playbook had scaled to an empire.

In 2010, Boris bought out Arkady’s 45% stake (estimated at 600 million rubles), becoming sole owner and consolidating strategic vision. This decision would prove critical when the third crisis arrived.

Russia’s economy devastated by the 2014 ruble devaluation (70% decline), Western sanctions, and oil price collapse pushed consumer real incomes down for 38 consecutive months. Once again, most Russian retailers struggled to survive. Boris executed ruthless restructuring: consolidated competing offices, closed underperforming stores, reduced staff. The decisive adaptation followed the established playbook—accept short-term pain for long-term viability, don’t wait for conditions to improve, make the hard calls while you have resources.

By 2018, Boris recognized a different limit. Sela needed 1.3 billion rubles in investment but was valued at only ~500 million rubles. The business required resources and capabilities Boris couldn’t provide alone. Unlike 1998 (bet on customers) or 2008 (bet on digital) or 2014 (restructure decisively), 2018 demanded succession planning. In August 2019, Boris sold Sela to Melon Fashion Group in what industry sources called “the largest deal in Russian fashion retail history.” The clean exit proved the business was transferable, not just founder-dependent. It was the ultimate crisis-testing validation—Boris had built something that could survive without him.

The Legacy of Offensive Crisis Strategy #

Boris died February 9, 2023, at age 65 in a car accident in Latvia (Латвия), four years after selling his life’s work—a complete founder arc from Soviet frustration to immigrant hustle to empire-building to graceful exit. Under Melon Fashion Group, Sela repositioned as “sela moms & monsters” and operates 184 stores as of 2024, continuing the affordable-quality mission Boris established.

The industry impact is threefold. First, Boris pioneered vertically integrated branded retail in Russia when the industry assumed only Western companies could execute full-cycle operations. As InfoLine CEO noted, Sela was “a phenomenon” where “many consumers thought that this company was European, since both store design and clothing design, and in general, the approach to work was fully focused on the best standards of international practices.” The Hebrew name worked—it signaled quality without lying about Russian ownership.

Second, Sela’s franchise model became industry standard. Competitors copied the documentation systems and partner support structures Boris developed, accelerating Russian retail professionalization. Third, and most significant, Boris proved that crisis strategy matters more than crisis survival. The 1998 price freeze, the 2008 e-commerce launch, the 2014-2016 restructuring—each demonstrated the same principle: defensive moves preserve existing value, offensive crisis moves create new value.

For founders navigating emerging market volatility—Russia, China, Brazil, India, the broader Global South—Boris’s playbook offers proof, not theory. When the currency collapses, freeze prices while competitors raise them. When the economy contracts, launch new capabilities while competitors retrench. When structural problems emerge, restructure decisively while competitors delay. And critically, know when to exit—selling in 2019 preserved both brand and legacy, allowing Boris’s work to continue beyond his lifetime.

The immigrant advantage was real. Standing in Israel looking back at Russia gave Boris perspective insiders lacked: he saw pent-up demand where others saw chaos, he recognized that “foreign” branding (Sela in Hebrew) could disguise Russian ownership when consumers trusted Western quality more than domestic production, and he understood that crisis moments separate opportunists from partners in customer perception. As Boris articulated his philosophy: “Во-первых, если хочешь стать богатым, ты должен работать для бедных. Во-вторых, рынок специально выбирать бессмысленно—надо делать то, что в данный момент возможно.” (“First, if you want to get rich, you need to work for the poor. Second, it’s pointless to deliberately choose a market—you need to do what is possible at the given moment.”)

The lesson isn’t that crises are good. They’re terrible. Boris’s lesson is that how you respond to crisis—offensively or defensively, with customer focus or profit maximization, with long-term positioning or short-term survival—determines whether you merely survive or build something lasting. From four containers of Chinese down jackets to 600 stores across 14 countries, Boris proved that in emerging markets, crisis strategy is the moat. Distance from chaos creates clarity about opportunity.

Last updated: January 15, 2026