When it comes to getting small businesses started, Irina Razumnova says, women do a better job than men.


She is in a position to know. For the last three years, Razumnova has run the Gildiya Small Business Development Center, an adult education facility offering courses for both men and women -- but which has mainly served women.


"Women are more flexible, more mobile, they are not embarrassed to study, they do not expect quick money," Razumnova said.


"They are hard-working and they are not ashamed to run a business with only two employees." The center provides its students with basic knowledge in accounting, financial planning, marketing, personnel management, business psychology and foreign languages. During the three years of its work the center has trained 1,000 people, mostly women.


Gildiya not only provides its students with technical knowledge, but sometimes directs them toward areas of business opportunity.


"Their fantasy very often does not go further than selling cakes," Razumnova said.


She gave the example of Lena Zyryanova from Kaluga, who came to the center not knowing which occupation to take up.


"I had to sit down with her and ask what she could do. She said she could crochet, like nearly everyone in Kaluga," Razumnova said.


The center taught Zyryanova how to present her skills, how to start a small business. She went back to Kaluga and now has three small shops there, Razumnova said.


Despite the success of her students, Razumnova acknowledges that women encounter more difficulties than men when starting a business.


"If a woman and a man come to a bank to ask for a credit, of course, they will prefer the man," she said.


In addition, she said, no special organizations or funds exist to help women in starting their businesses. "Though we are doing what the state is supposed to do, it does not help us at all."


Her center has to pay taxes as a commercial firm, although it is a non-profit organization. Its only sponsor is the American cosmetics firm Avon, which provides free training for orphans and invalids.


"I have so many financial problems that I go to sleep and get up with thoughts about the center," she said. But she is not one to surrender to difficulties.


Razumnova lost her mother when she was only seven and had to live very much on her own from the age of 12. After graduating from the Moscow Economics Institute, she worked at the Moscow Radio Factory for seven years. She was then admitted to the Institute of World Economy and International Relations where she earned a Ph.D. in Economics on the subject of plant management in the United States.


In 1991 she set up the center.


"It is terribly hard," she admits. "I have mixed feelings of happiness, anguish and bitterness, and at the same time I feel my life is full."