Eastern Europe's 30-year revival: Has the transition from communism to capitalism been a "remarkable" success?

Czechoslovakia, 1989.

We'll be vacationing in Croatia (briefly) and Slovenia, both components of ex-Yugoslavia, and thus to American minds like mine that were formed during the Cold War, both belonging to "Eastern Europe."

Never mind that Yugoslavia was non-aligned and abstained from the Warsaw Pact. It remains that "central" always was a better modifier, and "Eastern" no longer is monolithic, now mandating the use of the lower case, eastern.

Is the present era the best and worst of times for these formerly communist countries? Here are three perspectives.

First, a rosier-than-not overview.

'This is the golden age': eastern Europe's extraordinary 30-year revival, by Shaun Walker (The Guardian)

Not everything is perfect – as reflected in political flux – but the region is wealthier and healthier than ever before

Maciej Grabski looks out over a panoramic view of the Baltic Sea, from the 32nd floor of the Olivia Star tower in Gdańsk, Poland.

“My children never saw the dark, devastated atmosphere that I remember from the 1980s,” he says. “Many people take things for granted now.”

The tower, built by Grabski’s construction company, is the centrepiece of a new business development on the outskirts of Gdańsk, and filled with the offices of multinational companies. It is next door to the squat, concrete Olivia sports hall, where the Solidarity trade union movement held its first congress in 1981, heralding the beginning of the end for communism in the region.

The economic demands of Solidarity, which had sprung up at the huge Gdańsk shipyard and was led by Lech Wałęsa, rippled through Poland and then the rest of central and eastern Europe during the 1980s. By the end of the decade, borders were open, regimes collapsed and the Berlin Wall, concrete symbol of 45 years of European division, was being pulled down.

What happened next was extraordinary, painful and unpredictable, as an entire region lurched into uncharted territory. Progress was fitful, messy and often unevenly distributed, sowing the seeds in some countries for the recent rise of populism.

But 30 years on from the heady days of autumn 1989, a range of metrics demonstrate that the transition from communism to capitalism has been a remarkable success.

Next, a more cautious take in economic terms.

Can the good run of central Europe’s economies last? at The Economist

The extremely open economies are vulnerable to external shocks

Fifteen years after they joined the EU, the four “Visegrad” states of central Europe (the v4) can be prouder of their economic achievements than of their patchy record on political reform. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia have increased their levels of gdp per head dramatically, and are converging with their mighty neighbour Germany. The Czechs are the richest, with a gdp per head that is 73% of Germany’s, followed by Slovakia with 63% and Hungary and Poland with around 57% each—and the gap continues to close, as their growth outpaces that of the behemoth.

Four main external forces have driven the remarkable successes of the four extremely open v4 economies. The first is their access to generous subsidies from the EU, which make up a sizeable chunk of their respective national incomes. Second is the munificent flow of remittances from millions of expat v4 citizens who now live and work in the EU, especially in Germany, Austria or Britain. A benevolent recent economic environment has also helped, especially the success of the German economy, by far their most important trading partner and the biggest or second-biggest investor in each country. And lastly, the four all started from a low base, enabling them to serve as cheap workshops for more developed economies. The danger is that all four of these factors are now petering out.

And, to recall, East Germany always was a special case.

Germans still don’t agree on what reunification meant at The Economist

Discontent may even be growing

On November 9th 1989, as the Berlin Wall tumbled, Hans-Joachim Binder was on night shift at the potash mine in Bischofferode, a village in the communist-ruled German Democratic Republic. Mr Binder, a maintenance worker who had toiled in the mine for 17 years, had no idea of the momentous events unfolding 240km (150 miles) to the east. The first sign something was up was when most of his colleagues disappeared to investigate what was happening at the border with West Germany, just ten minutes’ drive away. Only three returned to complete their shift.

Less than a year later Germany was reunited, capping one of the most extraordinary stories in modern history. Not only had a communist dictatorship collapsed, releasing 16m people from the fear of the Stasi (secret police) and the stultification of censorship. Unlike any other country ever freed from tyranny, the entire population of East Germany was given citizenship of a big, rich democracy. As a grand, if ill-fated, gesture of welcome the West German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, converted some of their worthless savings into hard currency at the preposterously generous exchange rate of one Deutschmark to one Ostmark.

More than 1m Ossies took advantage of their new freedom by moving to the West, where most thrived. Official statistics no longer counted this group—who were disproportionally young, clever, female and ambitious—as East Germans. For those who stayed behind, however, the 30 years since the fall of the Wall have been a mix of impressive progress, often taken for granted, and sour disappointment.

12 Days of Slovenia & Trieste (Part 1): Chapter 40 in an ongoing love affair with Europe.

Hungary, 1987.

Surely you know by now that my maiden voyage of exploration to Europe was in 1985, lasting three months and sticking largely to the well-worn backpackers' tourism routes in "Western Europe," as it was delineated at the time. 

Granted, geographically both Greece and Turkey lie to the east, and proved very exotic by Ohio Valley standards. Even today cynics doubt whether either of these countries will ever be "western" in any comprehensive sense, but it wasn't until my quick three-day visit from Helsinki to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) that my travels took me into the realm of Raygun's evil empire: Eastern Europe and the USSR.

It is no exaggeration to say that I was immediately hooked on further prospects to explore these seemingly unknown areas. I spent two months in east-central Europe in 1987, and three months in 1989. Much of this time was spent in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and East Germany. Smaller segments brought me to Poland, Yugoslavia, the former Baltic Republics and Bulgaria (Albania and Romania came later, in the 1990s).

It became evident very quickly that while it was easy to classify these places in one lump sum as belonging to the Warsaw Pact/East Bloc/Communist monolith, in fact each had distinct cultures and meaningful histories spanning centuries, prior to a mere five decades following World War II. Since the Berlin Wall's fall and the subsequent dismantling of the postwar settlement, I've continued to be intrigued, and we regularly dip back for visits into the east-central territories.

This time around it's Croatia and Slovenia, ending in Trieste (an Italian city, but only just barely), and as usual I've been asked why we go, especially in the chill of winter.

Actually the temperatures are about the same as Louisville around Thanksgiving, and they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in these places, which is a bonus for both of us. Besides, my wife is from Maine and she prefers cold-weather holidays; furthermore, it's off-season and travel is less expensive.

I can't deny that a measure of contrarianism contributed to my original interest in these locales. The idea of going where few Americans bothered was very appealing to me. Even better was the bargain price structure compared to capitalist Europe.

However there was a cost to low price. During Communist times it took extra effort (visas, mandatory currency exchanges, avoiding prohibited areas), as well as added time and difficulties in matters like communication. Each country had its own language, with fewer speakers of English. Usually there was a way to achieve one's itinerary, although it might take a while.

Those times are gone, and several former Warsaw Pact countries use the Euro. Seemingly millions of tourists inundate cities like Prague, where in 1989 you could lie down on the Charles Bridge and have a nap without being disturbed. Conversely, regions like Transylvania and eastern Slovakia receive far less in the way of throngs.

Following is a good introductory link to a part of the planet that still intrigues me these many years later.

20 Reasons Why Eastern Europe Is Extremely Underrated (And Worth Traveling to), by Nicco Martel (The Travel)

A few mementos from the 1989 European Summer.

I visited the basement archives today in search of Public House paraphernalia, and couldn't resist opening the jam-packed banker's box devoted to the 1989 trip to Europe, large portions of which were spent in the Communist nations of the Warsaw Pact.

Look for the travelogue with digitalized slides to hit these pages next year.

In the spring of 1989, I flew into a continent divided into “cold” warring blocs, and much of my summer was spent behind the lines of America’s presumed enemy. By the time I flew home in November, the Berlin Wall was down and everything was changing.

I’ll probably spend the rest of my life mulling over how well, and badly, I reacted to these changes.

In the interim, here are a few museum pieces, beginning with genuine toilet paper from the East Bloc, suitable for scouring.

 The title says it all.

Not a mascot to inspire fear.

Each one was personally sampled.

Each coaster probably had at least one full beer glass riding on top.

Women, sex, socialism and Slavenka Drakulić's How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed.

Published in 1992.

When I saw the NYT article (below) last week about the sex lives of Eastern European women during communism, it immediately brought to mind a book I read a very long time ago.

Her Life Through Their Eyes, by Cathy Young (New York Times)

HOW WE SURVIVED COMMUNISM AND EVEN LAUGHED, by Slavenka Drakulić

 ... One does not have to embrace stereotypes about some uniquely female sensibility attuned to the personal (as if men never write about the personal!) to acknowledge the particular burdens that scarcity in Eastern Europe has imposed on women. Not surprisingly, Ms. Drakulić concentrates primarily on women's lives. Her perspective is that of a feminist, but the Eastern European experience gives her feminism a special edge. She is acutely aware of a larger helplessness that unites women and men: "It's hard to see . . . men as a gender. . . . Perhaps because everyone's identity is denied, we want to see them as persons, not as a group, or a category, or a mass."

For more on the author:

To some, Slavenka Drakulić (4 July 1949--) may not seem like a particularly remarkable figure in European history. She is not often proclaimed to be a hero who might inspire all people; nor was she, arguably, a particularly explosive dissident. However, in reading Drakulić's own accounts of her life under Communism in former-Yugoslavia, we may see that Drakulić herself places great value in what others may deem “the boring parts of the revolution.”

Now last week's article about female sexual pleasure in a time of Marxism-Leninism.

Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism, by Kristen R. Ghodsee (New York Times)

When Americans think of Communism in Eastern Europe, they imagine travel restrictions, bleak landscapes of gray concrete, miserable men and women languishing in long lines to shop in empty markets and security services snooping on the private lives of citizens. While much of this was true, our collective stereotype of Communist life does not tell the whole story.

Some might remember that Eastern bloc women enjoyed many rights and privileges unknown in liberal democracies at the time, including major state investments in their education and training, their full incorporation into the labor force, generous maternity leave allowances and guaranteed free child care. But there’s one advantage that has received little attention: Women under Communism enjoyed more sexual pleasure.

A comparative sociological study of East and West Germans conducted after reunification in 1990 found that Eastern women had twice as many orgasms as Western women. Researchers marveled at this disparity in reported sexual satisfaction, especially since East German women suffered from the notorious double burden of formal employment and housework. In contrast, postwar West German women had stayed home and enjoyed all the labor-saving devices produced by the roaring capitalist economy. But they had less sex, and less satisfying sex, than women who had to line up for toilet paper ...

30 years ago today: Four days in Kőszeg, a small Hungarian town.

Previously: 30 years ago today ... experiencing Sopron, Hungary.

This is neither the time nor the place for a wider consideration of Communism as practiced in the geopolitical vicinity known as the "East(ern) Bloc" following World War II.

The Eastern Bloc is a collective term for the former Stalinist puppet countries and colonies in Central and Eastern Europe. This generally encompasses the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact.

Communism varied by country, although it can't be argued that in practice, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria answered to the Kremlin.

Yugoslavia and Albania, while professing Communism, pursued independent courses while perched on the fringe of the Soviet sphere.

These East Bloc countries are where I wanted to be for two months in 1987, and my whole trip was built around this desire. It never ceased to amaze and confuse the folks back home, and perhaps my name as yet can be found in an old-fashioned file drawer on a CIA watch list. To be sure, I wanted to see what Communism was about, but long before these Eastern European countries were Communist, they were simply European, without the east vs. west qualifiers.

Hungary was my third stop, after Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Apart from the necessity of being in Moscow on June 29, my itinerary wasn't fixed. However, each of these countries required effort beyond that necessary in Western Europe.

Most obviously, visas. Showing one's passport wasn't enough, because explicit advance permission was required to enter. It could be done at the border in Yugoslavia, but for most (maybe all) of the other Warsaw Pact countries, this layer of bureaucracy demanded forethought and planning.

I obtained the needed visas by mailing my passport, application forms and money orders back and forth to embassies in Washington D.C. They could also be obtained at Western European embassies.

Once on the ground in the Bloc, life was very safe and salubrious for most tourists, who even at modest levels of expenditure could afford to "buy" their way out of problems that beset ordinary citizens there.

The Bloc's chronic economic shortfalls meant that our "hard" currency was needed, and so long as we stayed away from drugs, there seldom were problems. The regimes wanted tourists to spend money, although some countries made the basics harder than others.

For instance, East Germany was almost impossible to navigate as a solo traveler. Yugoslavia charged foreigners a higher price than Yugoslavs for the same hotel room. Czechoslovakia required visitors to exchange a certain amount of foreign currency into kroner for every day of the stay, and it could be problematic changing it back when departing. Black markets were illegal, though sometimes tolerated. The rules changed at every border.

By acclamation, the international budget travel community considered Hungary the most relaxed Communist country in which to holiday. This dichotomy probably sounds strange -- live well and have fun amid a Communist dictatorship -- but to me the objective was to learn, and if learning could be done less expensively, I was in favor.

Language barriers aside, I fully expected Hungary to be the best choice for spending three and a half weeks prior to joining my prepaid USSR tour group. I was right. Once inside Hungary, I was smitten. It was cheap and fascinating.

In retrospect, I might have chosen to see more of the country -- Pecs, the Puszta, Eger. It didn't pan out this way. Tellingly, I elected to spend all my Hungarian time in Sopron, Kőszeg and Budapest.

Then as now, Sopron and Kőszeg are located within strolling distance of the Austrian border, and of course Budapest is the capital and largest city. Arguably, with more German and English speakers and a better developed tourist infrastructure, the northwestern side of Hungary was the easiest choice for me. In retrospect, it was a missed opportunity, though I enjoyed the experience.

After Sopron, the next stop was Kőszeg (KOE-seg is close), a town of 10,000 or so snuggled in wooded hills just a few clicks from Austria. I can't remember whether my ride to Kőszeg was by rail or bus, but the tourist bureau offered me the plushest private accommodation for $5 per night that I've ever experienced, before or since.

The dates of my stay were June 11, 12, 13 and 14. I took several long walks, which I believe testifies to a budding urbanite's need to periodically relive his childhood out in woods.The Kálváriatemplom is situated in the countryside, just out of town.

At the time, I saw this field and concluded it must be the border with Austria. In fact, it is not. Even so, at one point on a walk, a bearded fellow in jeans popped out from the trees and began interrogating me, first in Hungarian (blank look), then German ("Ich spreche kein Deutsch") then finally very rudimentary English. He showed me his official ID and was quite pleasant, conveying that the path I was on led to the border, so I should turn around.

I did.

A random, archaic country house. This shade of yellow follows me everywhere.

Next, a set of old/new photos. In the Kőszeg of 1987, this synagogue was in a jungle-like setting.

30 years later, restoration is complete (view courtesy of Google Map's street view).

A nice German-style beer garden, which may have served Austrian lager.

Kőszeg's Town Hall on Jurisics Square has been used continuously since the 14th century.

The Heroes’ Gate (or Heroes’ Tower), originally the 14th-century Southern Gate, was demolished in 1880 and this new tower built to mark the 400th anniversary of the Siege of Kőszeg by the Turks.

St. Imre Church on Jurisics Square was built after a squabble between Kőszeg's German and Hungarian Protestants.

Freshly picked flowers for forints (the Hungarian currency), available on the honor system from this streetside chair.

A view of the town from the wooded hills.

"The castle was named after Miklós Jurisics, who was the captain of the castle when the Hungarian army managed to stop the Turkish troops, who planned to lay a siege on Vienna. Jurisics and his small army repelled 19 sieges altogether. According to the legend, the bells at 11 o’clock commemorate the last Turkish soldier leaving the town."

On June 15, I worked my way back to Budapest, where I'd remain until my train left for Moscow on the 26th.

Next: 30 years ago today: Genesis live in Budapest on June 18, 1987.

All about Kaliningrad, because "Königsberg is Dead."

Kaliningrad (née Königsberg) is an exclave, not an enclave. Lately much discussion has been devoted to NATO borders with a resurgent Russia in Estonia, Latvia and Finland, but not much is said about Kaliningrad, a Russian territory (and exclave) surrounded entirely by Lithuania and Poland.

Simply stated, Kaliningrad is a Russian (Soviet) city refashioned atop a German city, situated in what used to be East Prussia, and made possible by geopolitical adaptive reuse and ethnic cleansing following World War II.

Here's the short version of the documentary film's tale.

Königsberg, the ancient capital of East Prussia. Founded in 1255, Königsberg had been, in turn, the seat of the Order of the Teutonic Knights, the coronation place of Prussian kings and the birthplace of the philosopher Immanuel Kant. But that Königsberg no longer exists, its historic centre had been turned to rubble by the RAF in 1944, and subsequently occupied by the Red Army after one of the bitterest sieges of the Second World War. The remaining German population was driven out and the city, some to the West, some to exile and an early grave in the Russian East, and Oblast Kaliningrad created. In the official Soviet version, Kaliningrad's history only began in 1946. This documentary commemorates the 750th anniversary of the founding of Königsberg/Kaliningrad with interviews and extensive access to archive films, photographs and historical records. Former Königsberg residents now 'marooned' in the West, young Russians and one of the very few survivors of Königsberg's once-thriving Jewish population provide personal impressions of the city, both in its former glory as the jewel in East Prussia's crown and as a decrepit Russian outpost now incongruously situated within the EU.

The film is somewhat goofy in places, as with the recurring device of a wandering elk), and at places during the first half, the music is badly mixed, but it remains fascinating nonetheless. As a side note, the documentary was filmed beginning in 2004 and released in 2006, and as of 2016, first-hand witness and Königsberg native Michael Wieck is still alive at 88 years of age.

Kaliningrad was a place I couldn't even consider visiting during my 1980s East Bloc jaunts, as it was the port city of the USSR's Baltic Fleet and off-limits to foreign tourists. With appropriate visas these days, one can take the train from Berlin to Kaliningrad. I'd dearly love to do so.

How much is left of the original city, vast portions of which were obliterated during the closing stages of the war, and the initial years of Soviet occupation?

"This includes the ultimate insult to architecture anywhere – the multi-story House of Soviets at the site of the destroyed Königsberg Castle – a concrete apparition so excruciatingly ugly, it has been frequently referred to as the ugliest building in the world. Left unfinished for over 20 years, the exterior was painted light blue and windows were installed, for a visit by then-President Vladimir Putin in 2005. However, the interior remains unfinished and unusable."

Most people living in Kaliningrad today came there from somewhere within the former Soviet Union. In the decade since this documentary's release, younger residents increasingly see their lives and future prospects in terms of proximity to the European Union, not Russia.

This article from 2014 provides an update.

Resurrecting Königsberg: Russian City Looks to German Roots, by Susanne Beyer in Kaliningrad, Russia (Spiegel Online International)

The Allies bombed the Prussian city of Königsberg into the ground in 1944. Residents of what is today the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, a desolate Soviet landscape, are considering rebuilding the city center to reflect some of its historical German architecture.

I'm down with "prom-munism" so long as they do it right.

Okay, okay -- a bit young for prom.

Proms surely rank among the most forgettable of youthful institutions, but if your high school online/high-schoolers-choose-a-unique-prom-theme-communism/">prom theme is to be communism -- or more cleverly, Prom-munism -- then these youngsters best try to get it right.

Presumably, this communist-themed prom will ensure equal distribution of chips and punch, and abolish the idea of prom kings and queens.

HAR-rumph.

Everyday Communism

The people of eastern Europe lived in communist states for four decades in the 20th century. This website explores their everyday lives from the communist takeovers in the late 1940s through the "golden age" of the 1960s to the end of communist rule in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Topics explored include work, consumption, family, entertainment, privacy, youth, and dissent. The communist countries covered are the eight that were sandwiched between the USSR and western Europe: East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania.

All of the work posted on this website was done by University of Kansas students enrolled in the course "Everyday Communism." Their work, and this website, is indebted to the growing body of research on everyday life under east European communism.

The famous 2002 spring tour of Eastern Europe.

Over at Facebook, Tom Henderson made my day by posting photos of our springtime group trip to Eastern Europe in 2002. Meet Adrian, myself, Tim and Tom.

To the best of my recollection, this photo was taken in Nowa Hut, a suburb of Krakow, Poland. Nowa Hut is the steel mill and community built by the Communists after WWII, and I urged the guys to accompany me in an examination of newer socialist realist architecture, in contrast to Krakow's historic core. As you can see, we found beer.

Jeno, he short fellow in the center, was our tour guide. An Olympic swimmer, he escaped Hungary for Los Angeles after the failed 1956 uprising. While in Budapest, the man with the mustache (a full-fledged Senator) gave us a close-up and personal tour of the Parliament building.

Levoca (above) is a town in eastern Slovakia, near Spis castle (below).

Thanks, Tom, I really needed these! This trip is one I've comparatively neglected in my writings, so perhaps it's time to redress the balance.