Destination Eastern Europe

An excerpt from Lonely Planet's guide to Eastern Europe 

It seems like a simple concept: it's Europe, but it's the eastern part. Eastern Europe. 

Well, yes, but... it is not geography that defines Eastern Europe. If it were, this book would include countries like Finland and Greece, which are at the eastern edge of the continent.  

Certainly, language is not a binding factor, for some of these countries use the Latin alphabet, while others use Cyrillic; most speak Baltic, Romance or Slavic languages, but Estonian and Hungarian are indecipherable anomalies from the Finno-Ugric family. 

Religion is also not a uniter (if we may be forgiven the understatement). The region's population is Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim and Lutheran. In recent years, religion and ethnicity sparked the worst violence Europe has seen since World War II, busting the former Yugoslavia into seven independent countries (including the continent's newest nation - as of 2008 - Kosovo). It's fair to say that Eastern Europeans are still working out their religious differences. 

Culturally, the region is an Art Nouveau mosaic, each country a tile with its own colour, shape and texture. On display are southern hospitality and northern reserve, EU-approved transparency and post-Soviet haze, provincial modesty and big-city audacity, flabbergasting prosperity and heart-wrenching poverty.

So what is the unifying factor that defines Eastern Europe? What do these 20 countries have in common? 

Their only universal commonality is a little piece of shared history: 40-some years that they all spent under communist rule. The Iron Curtain so split the continent that now - two decades after it was ripped from its dictatorial rod - it still divides and unites in unlikely ways. (Only the former East Germany has completely discarded its `eastern' label.)

These days, the communist legacy endures in different ways. Every city has a relic or two - a Lenin monument or a KGB museum that remembers the bad old days. Bits of Soviet-era bureaucracy linger on in visa and registration requirements. Standing in an orderly queue is still a skill that evades many Eastern Europeans. But throughout the region, the grey, bleak uniformity is long gone.

Eager young democracies are queuing up to join the new Europe. Ten countries covered in this book are already members of the European Union, with two candidates and five `potential' candidates in the works. This leaves only four outliers - Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova - with no EU prospects. It explains a lot about why the Russian administration might feel a bit isolated.

Politics aside, all of these countries are embracing the 21st century with more gusto than anyone would have guessed. From Albania to Ukraine, their citizens are breaking down the barriers of generations past and exploring the possibilities of consumerism, creativity and career. Fusion food and edgy art, high-tech hotspots and high-life nightspots - this is not your father's Eastern Europe.