He has been here since 2001, so they might have met him. They may even have been knocked out by him, if they were in the audience at the UW Marching Band Concert or the Concerts on the Square when Belkin played his incomparable accordion and the crowd went wild.

But they don't know him.

If they saw Mike Lekrone introduce him at the Kohl Center in 2006, and saw Belkin's grinning, tremendously engaging accordion performance -- awarded a standing ovation by the audience -- they might wonder how he spends all his riches.

But the fact is Belkin works a tough factory job in the Madison area, and until recently had a second job unloading trucks at Target. When Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra music director Andrew Sewell first called Belkin about playing at Concerts on the Square, Belkin no longer owned an instrument.

He was an accordion virtuoso who once played on the stage of the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, home of that city's Philharmonic Orchestra, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in attendance.

But then -- well, then life got in the way.

Yet the other important thing to realize about Belkin, who is 35, is that with it all, he is happy in America, happy in Madison, and hopeful about his future. To understand that, you need to know about his past.

To really know Sergei Belkin, you need to spend some time listening to him talk about the little school in Siberia where he learned to play music. The snow would pile so high that he had to dig his way to the front door. But he did it, day after day, because the alternative was the booze and brawling that fueled teen life in the small city at the end of the world where Belkin grew up.

Once inside the school, the young Belkin would play the accordion, six, eight, even 10 hours a day.

"Music was everything," he said.

Belkin was born in the Ukraine, and lost his father in a motorcycle crash when Sergei was 3 years old. A year later, his grandparents gave him a toy accordion.

"My mom told me I started playing right away," he said.

He got a real accordion a few years later -- a gift from a suitor of his mother's. Sergei thinks the man may have stolen it, though he didn't ask.

"He didn't treat my mom well," Belkin said, and mother and son eventually fled the Ukraine, ending up in Provideniya, a small Siberian city best known for its military base, across the Bering Strait from Alaska.

Into his teens, Belkin began to travel to music competitions. His success led to his acceptance at the Moscow Conservancy, a famed music school where Tchaikovsky had taught in the 1800s.

But life in Russia was hard. Belkin is more blunt. "There was nothing in Russia," he said.

After two years at the Conservancy, Belkin followed his mother to Alaska, where she had married a U.S. citizen. The marriage didn't last, so Sergei and his mom came to the Midwest, first to Chicago, and then in 2001 to Madison, where they have some distant relatives.

In the scramble to earn a living, his music got lost. "I spoke little English," he said, which made connecting socially or trying to resurrect his music career difficult. Working two jobs also left little time.

Today, Belkin's English is still spotty but improving, and a few years ago, he and his mother were out at a restaurant/bar outside of Madison -- he doesn't recall the name -- when he spotted an accordion sitting in a corner and asked if he might play.

His playing turned heads. One thing led to another, and before too long Belkin was playing occasionally at folk festivals in the area.

One of the festivals was attended by an assistant of Mike Leckrone, director of the UW Marching Band.

She came back and told Leckrone, "You've got to hear this guy," speaking of Belkin.

Sergei auditioned in Leckrone's office -- "I was amazed," the director recalled -- and Belkin played two numbers at the band's spring Kohl Center concert in 2006.

"The crowd was charmed by him," Leckrone said. "They caught his personality. He was a huge hit."

Though naturally shy, Belkin on stage is transformed. Walking to the Kohl Center stage, someone flipped him a cowboy hat and he jauntily slapped it on.

A call from Sewell, about Concerts on the Square, soon followed. Belkin's excitement can be measured in his decision to take out a loan and buy a Scandalli piano accordion he couldn't really afford.

"The best accordion you can buy," Sewell said. His playing stunned the conductor. "He played so beautifully I couldn't believe it," Sewell said. "My jaw dropped."

His Concerts appearance was a great success, and others have followed.

But making a living as an accordionist is difficult. Sewell has grown close to Belkin and is trying to help. All who have heard him do not believe he belongs in a factory.

As for Belkin, he has hope. Because of the accordion, he always has, even in the dark days in Siberia.

"Music kept me alive," he said.

Contact Doug Moe at 608-252-6446 or dmoe@madison.com.