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Saturday, February 21, 2009

Leslie's Smile

To my huge regret and consternation on Friday, while still in Sarajevo, I learned that my colleague and friend Leslie (Laszlo Leitold) passed away in Almaty, Kazakhstan in unclear circumstances.

Leslie was always kind and gentle with me, exceptionally helpful, good-humored and caring. I liked to talk to him and see him, share weekend and holiday plans with him, discuss a bit about REC and the exchange rate of the Hungarian forint.

For me, there were several people in REC who had not succumbed to the vices of vanity, envy and self-conceitedness, who had personal and professional integrity and who kept a cool, critical, non-opportunist and non-conformist view at developments at REC. Metaphorically speaking, these people including Leslie were small, flickering lights in a big dark field. With Leslie's disappearance one more light is gone and REC becomes an even darker place.

Dear Leslie, my friend, I will remember your beautiful smile forever.

5 comments:

Tess Kincaid said...

I dropped by with some of those chocolate chip cookies and am so very sad to hear about your friend.

Jelica said...

Thanks, Willow. Actually, there are two of us writing in this blog and our names are beneath each post. My name is Ruslan - nice meeting you - and Jelica is my wife.

Jelica said...

Oops, I said all that logged as Jelica.

Anonymous said...

Hi Ruslan!

oh shit! I have heard the rumour and saw on the REC website it was true. I wanted to learn more about it and bumped in to your blog (which I liked anyway).
I am so sad that such a nice guy has to finish like this.
Do you know something more about the unclear circumstances?
Cheers,
Peter
your former colleague

Anonymous said...

Hi Ruslan! And all REC colleagues!

Thank you very much for your kind words.
I would like to express my thanks even in the name of my parents and sister-in-law to every colleague who were at the funeral personally or only in thoughts.
It is a very hard time for all of us, thanks for sharing this large burden with us.

Gábor
(Leslie's brother)