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#4 (40) 2006–#1 (41) 2007 Attraction of a client: Creative giftsEditor’s LetterRussia is an eastern country. It’s been long since you could surprise anyone with this thesis or statement. And specifics of any eastern business is such that in the beginning you have a relationship—good and warm. And money …well, money is a desirable attachment to a pleasant, close relationship. And therefore in our country anything that can be used in order to create and strengthen communications is an absolute necessity. That is a kind of a magic wand—something that remains before and after a relationship. That was absorbed into our blood and something we can all recall from the times of “socialism”: going to see a dentist with a bar of chocolate, so he wouldn’t drill your teeth for any longer than necessary, or a system that still survives of a compulsory “gift-package” for a road police officer out in the street. But that again is a necessity and doesn’t require any imagination. However it may be in our daily life presents, little gifts, donations are incredibly important. Here I can’t help recalling an expensive business-gift given to general Lebed, the late governor of Krasnoyarsky region. One well known structure in order to improve the relationship with him donated a large sum of money to pay for the present. A manager, relying upon his own healthy scene of humor, picked a fondue set as a present for the general, which is already funny as it is. But the specifically Russian hilarity of the situation was based upon the fact that the fondue-set was swan-shaped (the last name of the general means “swan” in Russian)., it was all made of silver and obviously very expensive. The general inquired about the price and function of the device and was apparently quite happy. The bird let out a neat stream of fire out of its beak, however the regulator of fire intensity was situated somewhere in the area of the noble bird’s anus. The general perceived a certain gentle hint in the gift… And as a result—business communications went down the drain in a second. The manager was urgently fired, and the story as comic as it may be was heard by many. The following conclusion may be drawn—it’s not the price of a gift that really matters, but how wellpicked and appropriate it is. As far as I remember over ten years past since the incident. And we can definitely state that the story of this present became independent. It resulted in an autonomous business concept, with its trends and traps. In this issue we gathered those gift-related stories that are in our opinion curious, unusual or amusing. We hope that it will be of some interest for those interested in the matter just as it was for us. The unusual has a tendency to attract attention especially if it has to do with traditional values of an eastern country. Peter Bankov
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