What is the most interesting thing about Eastern Europe?

[Ishan Jalan]

Hello everyone, I don't know if this is the best place for this question but I need to write an essay (or even a PowerPoint Presentation) which has something to do with the Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia and Ukraine.)

Everyone in my class has done it on specific countries and have concentrated on Music, Culture, Holidays, Religion, Political scenarios, etc.

I wanted to do something that takes all these countries, or at least most of them into consideration. What do you guys suggest? We are starting a course in Modern Eastern European Literature and a topic that might have anything to do with that would be awesome.

Thanks.

[JBI]

All of those are very different, the only thing linking them is they all experienced communism in one form or another. You left out a few too. Either way, I would focus on the unique aspects that set the east apart from the west.

[cacian]

I would say their architecture. They tend to have a dome type shape buildings. Maybe just research it on the internet to get an idea.

[2X2E5]

Their characters/personalities and how they treat strangers and tourists. They are very open in their politics and philosophy, and have a kind of unique eccentricity to them. Maybe exploring their perspectives and practices in family settings would be something exciting to research?

As for architecture, at least in Russia, much of it was designed by foreign architects from Italy and France, whom after completing their jobs were either killed, not allowed to go back home, and in some cases had their eyes taken out....fun stuff...

Hope that helps in some way!

[kiki1982]

Ah, well sometimes not a lot of that architecture is left due to the Commis.

However, usually Eastern European people are much more cultured than we are. The Commis took pride in educating their people (what the hell for is another matter). Everyone had their job and got paid for it (even for sitting in the corridor staring in a hotel, f.i.), even if they didn't do it well and were unfriendly. Although that unfriendliness has largely gone out of it recently because of capitalism (who wants to be served by a miserable bastard?), you can still sometimes see the sad and disinterested look of a bygone age in the eyes of a receptionist, waiter or something. It is usually only a façade and they cheer up once you give them a smile or tell them a joke (allowing that you know the language).

The system:
You can see remnants of this, funnily enough. Some people were so taken by it, that they have retained it. I expect it's much worse in Russia, as there are no people who knew the system before it went Commi, unlike in Eastern Europe.
As there were a lot of people to give jobs, you needed many jobs. Even the most useless ones would do. So, around New Year, when we went to our hotel Evropa in Prague. Google it, it's a wonderful [I can't say that enough] 1920s Art Deco hotel, built originally in 1901-08 or so and was a luxury hotel until the Commis went. Presidents and other dignitaries stayed there when they visited the Czech Republic. Once it was a luxury hotel. Now you can stay there in a room with bathroom for about €60 excl. breakfast, not bad at all for a hotel on Prague's main square of all things! (If you have the chance, stay there, although skip the breakfast, because it is abysmal. Better spend it on one of the same price in the Illy Café around the corner). So, we walk in through the antique self-push wood and brass revolving door, go to the reception... No, you need to turn the corner to check in, says a lady, barely looking up from her newspaper. There a(n admittedly) nice man checks us in, we get the key from the lady, having been issued a card. It's all a little delapidated and dark (paintwork is good, but for the rest it could do with some more lights and such, also the lift could do with an update). When we return that night, the night receptionist asks us for our card. Well, we did not know we needed a card to get our key ;). Anyway, thanks to my husband's Czech we get in and show him the card as a joke the next day. The staff got progressively nicer, though.
Having to get cards in order to get something else and having two receptionists is quite old style. In shops in Russia in the early 90s, you also needed a ticket with what you wanted in order to get it from another counter.
The Kafka museum had one person at the till in the shop, one person at the till for the museum (in the same shop) and one person across the square to tell you stuff about how to get into the museum and help you with putting away your coat. It bugs me why you should put the tickets for the museum across the square...

Eastern European people are friendly in general and would welcome you into their house and try to please you (even if it means going out in the middle of the night to go and find some milk). It's probably due to their culture too, but I would also say that there is a bit of travel restriction in there too. From an 80-year old Polish lady I heard first hand that travel was restricted (my husband too was subject to that as a British student in Russia in the early 90s), You had to apply to be allowed out of your zone (not country, but zone). Not only that, but there were also restrictions on how much money you could take and spend in that other country. Poles were the worst hit (according to the lady), but this applied all over the place. The point, I would think, was probably to avoid people going and buying the goods planned for that other country (e.g. chairs) so that there were not enough over there. But, as you couldn't take as much money as you wanted (this was calculated per adult and child, really not a lot), you had to save money where you could, and usually people stayed with relatives or people they knew. If this was not possible they took their own food from home (saved it up over the months). My point being that giving people food was an essential part of playing host, not just to please them, but so they could go and do something else in the meantime. Otherwise, they had to spend their precious money on that.

In my mind Commi architecture is mainly square and grey. Old buildings were left to crumble so they could knock them down and build something square and grey. Was it Warsaw that they moved in to the centre from the outside? They tried this tactic in several places, but thankfully Communism went before they could accomplish their vision. In the early 2000s things looked really bad in the areas outside the centre of Bratislava. Still in places in Prague too, altough they are a richer nation. The ideal of Communism was everyone in blocks in small apartments with communal gardens. The blocks are being painted in cheerful colours now and refurbished ;).

OK, so far about the Commis ;).

[JBI]

Try living in China - despite the place going capitalist, there are still way too many irrelevant jobs - getting your receipt stamped in the super market, for one. Or the fact that restaurants in the capitol have 10x as many servers as they need - and the food still doesn't come until you yell at them.

That seems a product of communist culture - efficiency is secondary. It says nothing of the people though.

As for Prague and the bits of the Czech Rep. That I saw, it was lovely, and very unlike what you now describe. To be honest, the place is probably one of the better tourist destinations in Europe - certainly one of the most affordable.

As for Hungary - from what I saw of it, it was interesting, but rather dishonest. I do not speak Hungarian, and could not pronounce the street signs to save my life, and I get the feeling people were taking advantage of that left right and center. Granted it's been almost a decade since I was there, so I assume it is quite different now.

As for Russian architecture, the strange onion-shaped domes are a legacy of Mongol and Central Asian culture - something which historians try to ignore, but is quite important, as Russia was part of the Mongolian Khanate far longer than many places, and is hardly identifiable with Europe until much later.

[kiki1982]

That seems a product of communist culture - efficiency is secondary. It says nothing of the people though.

As for Prague and the bits of the Czech Rep. That I saw, it was lovely, and very unlike what you now describe. To be honest, the place is probably one of the better tourist destinations in Europe - certainly one of the most affordable.

Oh, not everything is grey, but that was their ideal. Prague is not though (I suppose it would have been an outrage had they demolished that, although they have done it with lovely medieval buildings). But you only have to go to Bratislava across the river to the new district of the city to get really depressed.


As for Hungary - from what I saw of it, it was interesting, but rather dishonest. I do not speak Hungarian, and could not pronounce the street signs to save my life, and I get the feeling people were taking advantage of that left right and center. Granted it's been almost a decade since I was there, so I assume it is quite different now.

My husband said the same about the same period in Prague and he spoke Czech (although obviously they would have heard eventually that he wasn't). Shameless capitalism at that point. Westerners = tourists have lots of money, they hadn't so get everything you can off them. It's improved now, at least in the Czech Republic. They have learned that rippîng people off for the hell of it repels them rather than brings them back and that hurts your business eventually. Now it's mainly Russians and Asians (dare I say the Chinese) who come to launder money (shops that mysteriously sell nothing whatsoever, or hotels without any guests in them) or sell crap in the latter case, although that's mainly in the tourist-only places where they don't stand out. The rest is entrepreneurs all the way.

[JBI]

Chinese tourism is something many people hardly understand, this country, as a general tourist destination, being more expensive than most of Europe.

If you want to see the truly interesting stuff in China, that is, anything beyond Beijing, you better bring big cash. The hotels are cheap, but you need to cover long distances by transportation (or fly, which is not cheap), and then the entrance tickets are the most expensive in the world (a national park would be entrance ticket, 40$, bus ticket from the gate to the mountain, 20$, then you need to get around a little, add another 10-20$ for further transport fees). After that, it is no-frills for everything else. Some of the best viewing spots also have separate entrance tickets.

That is not counting getting there, or getting back, nor counting the fact that within the bounds of the park, and if the park is in a remote area of China, the city around it, everything is inflated in price. This is all big business and the Chinese Government, so this isn't personal greed or being cheated, this is government greed at its finest.

I have visited almost all of China (Tibet is a sore spot, being that I get turned away every time I try, because of one national holiday or another they say), and I can say this year the ticket price has increased maybe 30% since a couple of years ago. Hotels have also been on the rise, especially in certain peak seasons, and airfare is up relatively 30% across the board.

Most people go to Beijing and they see how great it is - and it is cheap for what it is. The Forbidden city, 10$, temple of heaven, 5$, Summer Palace, 2$, great wall, 5$, etc. but that is Beijing. Go to anywhere else and you are paying 10$ to see 3 statues, or 20 rocks.


That being said, Eastern Europe is still a cheap tourist destination. Most Western Europeans and North Americans have never had to deal in fluctuating figures before, so they get ripped off. Other people feel at home at a bazaar, and they know no price tag is static, and nothing particularly honest. As such, they are less likely to be cheated. A classic example is group tickets being cheaper than single tickets, but the bus driver selling group tickets at the single ticket rate, and then pocketing the difference. It is not that significant, but it is annoying in that you have no clue.

Then again, it is not right to basically reduce Eastern Europe to such a stereotype. It is relatively diverse. I would love to go to the former Yugoslavia some time, but I worry they will mistake me for an American and I will be beaten to bits.

[Pensive]

Eastern Europe is a broad term and its hard for me to speak about every country included. However since I am presently living in a small East-European country probably unknown to most people (Estonia - now it makes me wonder how many of you would have heard of it before) I can't refrain myself from commenting. I find it interesting how it is dealing with a Soviet past. Its adoption of free market economy and very open policies and a great deal of freedom of press and people's openness and their attitude towards the change is rather interesting. I think what unites East-European countries (or at least the East-European countries in the Baltic Sea Region) is how the Soviet past has helped in shaping people's behaviour and attitude.


In my mind Commi architecture is mainly square and grey. Old buildings were left to crumble so they could knock them down and build something square and grey. Was it Warsaw that they moved in to the centre from the outside? They tried this tactic in several places, but thankfully Communism went before they could accomplish their vision. In the early 2000s things looked really bad in the areas outside the centre of Bratislava. Still in places in Prague too, altough they are a richer nation. The ideal of Communism was everyone in blocks in small apartments with communal gardens. The blocks are being painted in cheerful colours now and refurbished .

OK, so far about the Commis .

There is actually quite a lot of it in my town. Here you could actually see the maze of Soviet apartment blocks (I find the architecture very interesting).

http://www.erki.ee/tartu/9kordsed.jpg



If you want to see the truly interesting stuff in China, that is, anything beyond Beijing, you better bring big cash. The hotels are cheap, but you need to cover long distances by transportation (or fly, which is not cheap), and then the entrance tickets are the most expensive in the world (a national park would be entrance ticket, 40$, bus ticket from the gate to the mountain, 20$, then you need to get around a little, add another 10-20$ for further transport fees). After that, it is no-frills for everything else. Some of the best viewing spots also have separate entrance tickets.

It is understandable for taxis to be so expensive for long-distances but I thought subway travel in Beijing was rather nice and affordable. Don't really know how it works in the rest of the country.