Last week, Wednesday, March 27th, at Tech20/20 networking lunch I met John B. - local entrepreneur from Knoxville, TN. Quick chat about my country of origin - Ukraine - led us to discovery of John's participation, as member of Rotary Club of Knoxville, in helping orphanage in Eastern Europe, city Matezalka, Hungary.
Listening to his story of delivering bicycles "by pedaling" from Budapest to Matezalka reminded me my own story related to Rotary Club of Budapest.
I started playing chess with my dad when i was 7 years old, as 1st grader in School #5, Uzhgorod, Ukraine, in year 1978. By age 10 i was playing at competitions with grown-ups at chess club, then located at downtown of Uzhgorod, Korzo Street. Back in Soviet Union for some idiotic decision chess were classified as sport. So when i started to receive recognition as chess player it was presented to my school as sport achievement. It didn't go well with classmates who were big into real sports, like football. Nonviolent bullying led me to drop playing chess and switch to real sport - hockey. But that's another, rather unpleasant, story...
But back in early 90x as student of Uzhgorod National University i decided to resume playing chess. So i went to known address at Korzo, but there was no chess club anymore. Instead the old location hosted Uzhgorod Club of Intellectual Games. I walked into the club and met its chairman - Galitzin Petr Alekseyevich (Голицын Петр Алексеевич), descendant of known Russian Nobility. You can read more about his life and tragedy of his ancestors in Russian language at following article.
Short discussion about Uzhgorod Club of Intellectual Games and i learned that behind big name is actually Bridge Club. Back in Soviet Union playing cards were considered politically incorrect, so Petr Galitzin found the way to mascaraed Bridge Club under politically correct title of Intellectual Games. I tried to play bridge and liked it so much that introduced game to classmates at University, one of which - Michael Janochko, is currently one of Contract Bridge champions in Eastern Europe. We started to play Bridge at tournaments in Eastern Europe - mostly Hungary and Romania.
One day, few years later, Petr Galitzin announced at our Bridge Club that Rotary Club of Budapest will be visiting Uzhgorod, Ukraine and as part of their program there will be Bridge Tournament. Members of Uzhgorod Bridge Club were paired with members of Rotary Club of Budapest. I got as partner the President of Budapest branch of Credit Lyonnais Bank. I was in the middle of transitioning from French language, studied at high school, to English, that i started to study in University. So my communication was weird mix of English and French words, that was very confusing to French banker. Nevertheless we scored 2nd place, which made him pretty happy especially considering that it allowed him to tease his buddy which ended on fifth or sixth place. At the end of tournament he gave me his business card with statement to stop by if i to be in Budapest. Courtesy invitation, as i know now, didn't really mean that he invited me to Budapest. But back then i took it literally...
About year later my classmate - Istvan Biro, told me about VAT reimbursement - process to file at customs for reimbursement of AFA (Hungarian VAT) paid during original purchase of goods in Hungary. The process allowed to get back 20%. Then that's was know-how worth of descent patent nowadays.
Back then i worked as Computer Helpdesk Technician at West Contrade - one of first post-USSR private commercial companies, owned by now famous Ukrainian politician - Nestor Shufrych. One of lines of his business back then was importing hi-tech goods, including computers, from Hungary.
So connecting all dots together i made sales pitch to Istvan to go to Budapest and buy computers for re-sale. I leveraged French banker as my connection to Hungarian business world and Nestor's success in importing computers as market knowledge. Istvan agreed.
We traveled to Budapest, bought couple of computers and decided to stop by at Credit Lyonnais at Budapest downtown. We walked into nice building at Vaci Utca and i handed to receptionist the same business card i got at Bridge tournament, and told her that i'm interested in loan to purchase computers. Few minutes of conversation in Hungarian and receptionist told us that Branch President is in Paris, and therefore cannot meet us in person. She was very nice and apologetic, offered us some materials about bank and how to apply for credit. After we walked away Istvan looked at me and said that he thought i was bluffing that i know President of Budapest branch of Credit Lyonnais Bank.
We never applied for credit as we were not citizens of Hungary, but we did managed with Istvan to sell a dozen of computers imported from Hungary back in year 1993...
Nowadays when asked what would be formula of future business model, my answers is:
continuous education + handshake networking + social workload (or community volunteering).
Above story is good example of networking and community components of above formula.
March 20, 2013
Roman Havrylyak
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