Twenty years young
Greg and Anna Eydlish’s plans for a global manufacturing business started with humble beginnings – a 300 square-metre factory in St Kilda, Victoria with one phone, one desk, one forklift, and six employees.
Greg and Anna’s arrival in Australia in 1980 from the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, also started in a similar manner. They had no passport, no citizenship, spoke no English, and just two suitcases per person.
“At the time, Azerbaijan was part of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). We didn’t like the socialist system of Russia,” Greg says. “We wanted out.”
Along with their three young sons, they embarked on a challenging journey to flee their homeland. They travelled by train to Austria, then to Poland and the Czech Republic before arriving in Italy. There, they went to the Australian embassy to ask permission to enter the country.
As if somehow foreseeing the future, an embassy worker
