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CMEA 10-DEC-97 22:34:11 031350

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CC: Michael Zink (APSYD:GF), M.Hanif Younus (EUMOW:IB),
CC: Mehdi Shirazee (MERUH:IB)
From: Miljenko Horvat (EUMOW:IB)
Date: WED 10-DEC-97 22:34 GMT
Subject: It is Christmas time again...
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and once more that time of the year when it is appropriate to
reflect on the year past, think about the future and ask some of
those "zhiznj" type of questions.

For those of you who have not received one of these before, this
is a continuation of a "conversation" which I started to try to
have with all of you at our Christmas party of 1995. I call it
a conversation because it is a chat I would very much like to
be able to have with you individually but since that is not possible
for reasons of time, awkwardness and even geography I try to still
have a meaningful interaction this way. The list of people is
not based on who I know and do not know but by technical things
such as how many names I can put on citimail and who is on it
and who is not. You will notice that for the first time there
are some foreigners on the list. They have "deserved" this by
the perceived degree of sentimentality towards this country and
the obvious respect and adoration that they have earned in the
Citibank Russia family.

A few weeks ago a Russian friend visited me at our house in New

York and sitting by the fire watching my son and daughter, two
dogs and a cat he made a remark as to how much we looked like
an ideal American family. My wife then asked him what would a
picture of an ideal Russian family look like and an interesting
discussion ensued which brought into focus things that have been
around my head for a while. What we more or less found out was that
today there is no such thing as an ideal Russian family.

What has happened in the last 10 years is that the prescribed

ideals of the past which were simple (and simplistic) have been
summarily rejected by the society but no new ideal in the sense
of values and who we are and what do we stand for has emerged
to fill the void. This "value vacuum" made it possible for all
sorts of experimentation to occur such as trying out if profit
is what will make us happy or trying going to church to see if that
is where we will find fulfillment and a set of anchors to lead
our life by. Not surprisingly, it did not take long for most people
to realize that cashmere Cerruti jackets bring happiness only
for a little while (it would be silly to suggest they do not do
so at all) but then one keeps looking.

Even the President and the politicians realize that there is something
missing and have sent a team of smart people out to a dacha to
think up the new Russian "national idea".

Some of you are aware of my project in which I asked different

people to nominate 20 Russian movies which I should
watch if I want to better understand Russia. Having seen what
profound meaning these movies have for all of you, I have decided
that my contribution to the evolving quest for better understanding
of what makes us contented will be a movie. This movie I saw
for the first time when I was 22 years old and it is the
American equivalent of "Ironija sudbi" in the sense that it both
happens at Christmas time and is usually shown on TV and in theaters
on college campuses around that time. It is also similar in that
it teaches us that happiness is usually much closer than we think,
in fact it is right under our noses.

I am not trying to tell you what to do or how to lead your lives.

All I am trying to do is share with you what my experience has
been and if by some miracle that has some emotional resonance
with you, nothing could please me more. I am trying to share
with you the feeling that one of your former colleagues expressed
to me over the phone recently: "Miljenko, when I went to
work at Citibank in Moscow on Monday morning, I actually looked
forward to it. I may not have realized it but I did. I was
working with friends. Now the hardest thing in the world for me
is to get up on Monday morning to go to work."

The older I get the more I realize that the satisfaction one gets
from doing things for other people by far outweighs anything else
one can do to feel happy. "Random acts of kindness" towards
your colleagues, your friends, towards your parents is something
that will make you feel deeply human. Also, it is the only way
you can hope they will do something like that for you and it is
only people that can reciprocate, a Mercedes 600 cannot.

The movie I am talking about is called "It's a Wonderful Life"

and a copy of it in PAL format (which took me almost a year to
find) will be with Lena in our office for you to borrow. What
I like most about it is that it shows how you do not have to do
anything special to be appreciated by people around you. Just by
being yourself you are in fact changing the world for the better
and making a difference in the lives of people around you. If you
focus your attention on doing more of it (being even more true to
yourself) you will be making an even bigger difference.

One way and time when we are not true to ourselves is under the
influence of alcohol. Some of you heard me say I will write about
it and one of the things which made me think about it even more
are the movies I have seen. The toasts in "Ironija Sudbi" or the
whole of "Osobenosti Natsionalyne Okhote". An entire culture has
developed in this society around drinking and what bothers me about
it is that there is no concept of moderation anywhere in it. People
have discovered that "in vino veritas" has some truth to it but
then take it too far by thinking that if one glass
makes me better able to express what I feel, several bottles will
do an even better job. They will not; they will only make you
look like a fool, have a hangover the next day and have a life
expectancy of 59 years if you are a Russian male person today.

The reason a glass of wine makes us better able to express our

feelings is because we are too inhibited in our everyday
life. This includes my favorite subject of emotional intelligence
of corporations and corporate settings. We should practice being
able to say to each other what we think without the help of a
bottle. It is unnecessary and a sign of our own weakness.

I personally cannot get very drunk any more because I remember.

I remember the time when I last got very drunk and how ill I
felt the next day. Because I remember that, a moment comes every
time where I know that the next step would make me feel like that
again the next day and I simply cannot do that. If there is any
slightest way that I can have an effect on you, it would be an
enormous privilege to me if moderation in drinking were that.

It would make me proud the way it makes me proud that when these
days people from Citibank Russia show up at Citibank internal
forums everybody stands up and looks. The way they stand up and
look is with awe and curiosity because they want to see what these
people are like who are the single most successful new franchise
of Citibank in its history. Whereas a few years ago we were a
curiosity and an item of interest, today we are a sensation.

I think about it a lot and take pleasure in it because I keep

thinking about how it must feel when at every airport you have
to go into a separate line if you are from Russia and how a visa
procedure in every embassy is different if you are from Russia.
Always being segregated and put in a special category. In
Citibank, at least, we have reached the point where we can
say "Damn right we should be in a special category, we're just
better!"

Enjoy Christmas and the New Year and remember.

Miljenko
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