Christmas Letter 1997

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CMEA 10-DEC-97 22:34:11 031350 Victor Bashkirov (EUMOW:IB), Ludmila Botsan (EUMOW:IB), Oleg Bykov (EUMOW:IB), Marina Doroshina (EUMOW:IB), Kirill Dremach (EUMOW:IB), Irina Eliseeva (EUMOW:IB), Elena Gavrichenko (EUMOW:IB), Alexei Gourianov (EUMOW:IB), Vadim Goverdovski (EUMOW:IB), Ekaterina Goviadinova (EUMOW:IB), Julia Grigoruck (EUMOW:IB), Georgi Grigoryants (EUMOW:IB), Dea Gunia (EUMOW:IB), Alexey Iodko (EUMOW:IB), Maria Ivanova (EUMOW:IB), Alexei Kandidov (EUMOW:IB), Anton Karamzin (EUMOW:IB), Elena Kloss (EUMOW:IB), Galina Kolesnikova (EUMOW:IB), Ella Korop (EUMOW:IB), Olga Kotelnikova (EUMOW:IB), Igor Kotlyarchuk (EUMOW:IB), Sergei Kotov (EUMOW:IB), Katerina Kotova (EUMOW:IB), Andrei Kourilin (EUMOW:IB), Oleg Krylov (EUMOW:IB), Kirill Kuziakov (EUMOW:IB), Andrei Kuzmichev (EUMOW:IB), Julia Kolosova (EUMOW:IB), Olga Lototskaya (EUMOW:IB), Eugene Maslov (EUMOW:IB), Anton Matveyev (EUMOW:IB), Vladimir Mironov (EUMOW:IB), Tatyana Narevskaya (EUMOW:IB), Peter Nathanial (EUMOW:IB), Genia Nazargalina (EUMOW:IB), Evelyna Nechiporenko (EUMOW:IB), Maxim Nesterenko (EUMOW:IB), Natalia Nikolaeva (EUMOW:IB), Katya Novikova (EUMOW:IB), Varya Orlova (EUMOW:IB), Tania Ozerova (EUMOW:IB), Andrei Podzolka (EUMOW:IB), Nikolai Pogorelov (EUMOW:IB), Vasily Polinov (EUMOW:IB), Andrei Popov (EUMOW:IB), Gleb Popov (EUMOW:IB), Yelena Poznykhova (EUMOW:IB), Vladimir Pronin (EUMOW:IB), Vadim Robinov (EUMOW:IB), Evelyn Rodionova (EUMOW:IB), Irina Sataeva (EUMOW:IB), Vera Shokina (EUMOW:IB), Tatyana Shpakova (EUMOW:IB), Andrei Silkin (EUMOW:IB), Dmitry Simakov (EUMOW:IB), Elena Sosudina (EUMOW:IB), Katya Syromiatnikova (EUMOW:IB), Konstantin Teleshov (EUMOW:IB), Andrei Vassiliev (EUMOW:IB), Zulfia Vershinina (EUMOW:IB), Natasha Yeremeyeva (EUMOW:IB), M.Hanif Younus (EUMOW:IB), Linas Zajankauskas (EUMOW:IB), Margarita Prokunina (EUMOW:IB), Serge Rozov (EUMOW:IB), Svetlana Shemetova (EUMOW:IB), Dmitriy Kalinitchenko (EUMOW:IB), Eugene Loktev (EUMOW:IB), Daniel Zakharov (EUMOW:IB), Lena Diadenko (EUMOW:IB), Denis Korshilov (EUMOW:IB), Natalya Belaya (EUMOW:IB), Dmitry Chistov (EUMOW:IB), Victor Rojkov (EUMOW:IB), Sergey Prusakov (EUMOW:IB), Roman Kolotygin (EUMOW:IB), Valeri Znamenschikov (EUMOW:IB), Asya Syromiatnikova (EUMOW:IB), Denis Rozhok (EUMOW:IB), Olga Mazur (EUMOW:IB), Marina Styogantseva (EUMOW:IB), Marina Zvereva (EUMOW:IB), Olga Poluektova (EUMOW:IB), Georgy Zvonkov (EUMOW:IB), Anton Dmitrakov (EUMOW:IB), Alexander Chukhlantsev (EULON:CEEMEA), Maria McKeon (EUMOW:IB), Tatiana Ovsyannikova (EUMOW:IB), Marianna Rimashevskaya (EUMOW:IB), Sergei Zakharov (EUMOW:IB), Katia Chuvashina (EUMOW:IB), Rita Weiner (EUMOW:IB), Feodor Barchukov (EUMOW:IB), Nikolai Sinilov (EUMOW:IB), Andrei Alexandrov (EUMOW:IB), Julia Petrova (EUMOW:IB), Tatiana Serova (EUMOW:IB), Vladimir Sdobnikov (EUMOW:IB), Alexei Vavilov (EUMOW:IB), Svetlana Frank (EUMOW:IB), Anna Shengelevich (EUMOW:IB), Svetlana Savinova (EUMOW:IB), Alexei Kapterev (EUMOW:IB), Anna Brandukova (EUMOW:IB), Alexei Boriskov (EUMOW:IB), Roman Kapinos (EUMOW:IB), Victoria Tsarapkina (EUMOW:IB), Ivan Anisimov (EUMOW:IB), Michael Volkov (EUMOW:IB), Dmitry Nikitin (EUMOW:IB), Anna Chistiakova (EUMOW:IB),

To: Michael Posadsky (EUMOW:IB), Alina Zemliakova (EUMOW:IB), To: Victoria Meshkova (EUMOW:IB), Elena Bublik (EUMOW:IB), To: Yana Roumiantseva (EUMOW:IB), Natalya Golikova (EUMOW:IB), To: Alexei Akindinov (EUMOW:IB), Nikita V. Petrov (EUMOW:IB), To: Igor Novozhilov (EUMOW:IB), Alla Zlatomrezheva (EUMOW:IB), To: Evgeny Fetisov (EUMOW:IB), Sergey Korotkov (EUMOW:IB), To: Natalia Sergeenko (EUMOW:IB), Dmitri Lavukhin (EUMOW:IB), To: Alexander N. Chudov (EUMOW:IB), Karolina Yemelianova (EUMOW:IB), To: Sergey Boyev (EUMOW:SPB), Irina Danilova (EUMOW:SPB), To: Zinaida Gretchina (EUMOW:SPB), Alexander Lemeshko (EUMOW:SPB), To: Olga Paseka (EUMOW:SPB), Oksana Safonova (EUMOW:SPB), To: Michael Sandigurski (EUMOW:SPB), Boris Tikhonenko (EUMOW:SPB), To: Kirill Yakovlev (EUMOW:SPB), masha Osokina (EUMOW:SPB), To: Andrei Aleinik (EUMOW:SPB), Helen Pykhova (AFTUN:IB), To: Alexander Sinenki (EUPRG:IBF) 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... ---------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 ----------