diff -uNr zarafa-6.40.6.orig//provider/libserver/ECDatabaseMySQL.cpp zarafa-6.40.6/provider/libserver/ECDatabaseMySQL.cpp
--- zarafa-6.40.6.orig//provider/libserver/ECDatabaseMySQL.cpp	2011-03-20 23:50:06.000000000 +0100
+++ zarafa-6.40.6/provider/libserver/ECDatabaseMySQL.cpp	2011-03-21 00:00:45.000000000 +0100
@@ -343,6 +343,10 @@
 		// this option was introduced in mysql 5.0, so let's not even try on 4.1 servers
 		strQuery = "SET SESSION sql_mode = 'STRICT_ALL_TABLES'";
 		Query(strQuery); // ignore error
+
+		// Latin1 is default charset
+		strQuery = "SET NAMES 'latin1'";
+		Query(strQuery);
 	}
 
 exit: