Eastern Europe

The reactionary coup in the Soviet Union will not restoreCommunist dictatorships in countries of Eastern Europe that Mikhail S. Gorbachev let go free. And while it might bring inspiration and hope to orthodox Communists in those countries, it is unlikely to come to their aid.Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia have anti-Communist regimes that, whatever their own frailty, count for support on popular detestation of former Communist regimes. East Germany, a former enforcer of Soviet dictates, is no longer a country but a part of West Germany.

A moment as mysterious as the sacred idea it celebrates - the crucified Christ's decent into Hades before his resurrection - arrived Saturday morning at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in a cascade of rose petals and a cacophony of bells, hands drumming on wood pews and a church elder chanting in his ancestral tongue. It was a rich, even raucous moment affirming belief in Christ's conquest of evil and heralding the arrival of the church's most significant holiday. This year, the Eastern Orthodox Church - the faith of an estimated 300 million people from the United States through Eastern Europe and the Middle East - celebrates Easter a month after the Western Christian observance, capping 40 days of fasting and a week of services marking different stages of the paschal narrative.

At THE HEIGHT of interest in Eastern Europe, some of us thought that interest in that part of the world was high. That was a mistake. The American people were not that interested. The media was.I wrote a book about the dramatic events in Romania in 1989, which culminated with the execution of the dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. Shortly after that, I gave a talk to an interested group and someone asked me a question. He began, ''Can you tell us, Mr. Ceausescu . . .?'' People laughed. I laughed.

Infamous presidential quotes through history: 1. "The American people have got a right to know that their president is not a crook. " Richard Nixon. 2. "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. " Gerald Ford. 3. "Read my lips: No new taxes. "George H.W. Bush. 4. "I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. " William Clinton. 5. "The notion that my White House would purposefully leak classified national security information is offensive. " Barack Obama.

ON Oct. 22, exactly one day after Congress granted Romania most-favored-nation trade status, a statue of Ion Antonescu was erected in the town of Slobozia, near Bucharest.General Antonescu, the fascist dictator during World War II, was responsible for the deaths of at least 250,000 Jews and 20,000 Gypsies. This is the first statue of a war criminal from Eastern Europe erected since the war.The dedication was attended by government officials such as Mihai Ungheanu, an aide to former President Nicolae Ceausescu and currently secretary of state for culture, and Corneliu Vadim Tudor, a member of Parliament who is a vicious anti-Semite.

LONDON -- The first international bank of the post-Cold War era opened here yesterday to funnel Western help to Eastern European countries converting to free-market democracies.British Prime Minister John Major said the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development marked "a new beginning" for the former Communist bloc and was a monument to European cooperation."We should not pretend for one moment that moving to a free-market economy will be easy or painless. It will not. But what we in the West can do is to help to make that transition a little easier and a little less painful," he said.

GENEVA -- As President Clinton wraps up his eight-day European trip today, the answer to the central question of his visit -- whether it did Eastern Europe any good -- sounds like an old Russian riddle.Who has all the power in the world in the post-Cold War era? Answer: the president of the United States.Well who, then, can help the beleaguered people of the former Soviet empire? Answer: certainly not the president of the United States.Everything on Mr. Clinton's trip, his most visible foray into foreign affairs so far, went as well as or better than the White House had hoped.

Ultimately, the success of the reform process in Central andEastern Europe hinges not on political changes at the national level, nor on the privatization of massive governmental enterprises, but on the extent to which democratic reforms and market processes take root at the local level.Yet despite a new law to bolster the role of local government in Poland, and similar changes under way elsewhere in the region, the task of creating an effective system of democratic local government is proving even more difficult than the comparable national changes.

WARSAW, Poland -- The emerging economies of Eastern Europe, pushed out of their Communist cocoons into the hurly-burly of the free market, are discovering that the ties they saw as chains also functioned as protective arms.And it is the gulf crisis and spiraling oil prices that have shown them how cushioned they once were by Moscow's suffocating embrace.Eastern Europe did a lively trade with Iraq and allowed that country to accumulate a sizable foreign debt that it paid in oil. Iraq owes Poland a half-million dollars accumulated from arms sales (which amounted to $115 million in 1989 alone)

Green Square in Tripoli. Tahrir Square in Cairo. The new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on Washington's National Mall. We humans know, deep inside, that public places - squares and greens and plazas that are open to all - are more than just spaces for crowds. Humans are social beings, and most of us understand on some level that coming together across class, ethnic and gender lines provides some of the glue that helps hold civilization together. Libya's celebrations, Egypt's protesters and even those annual July 4 throngs at the Mall are reminders of the symbolic and literal relationship between public places and democracy.

A group that salvages Holocaust-era Torahs from Europe and sells them to congregations in the United States has agreed to stop promoting dramatic rescue stories unless it can document them, according to an agreement with Maryland authorities sparked by complaints about the group's practices. An investigation into the operations of Save a Torah of Rockville followed a Washington Post Magazine article that raised questions about stories told by Rabbi Menachem Youlus, the group's leader.

To Americans, the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago this week - and the Iron Curtain with it - was more than a big move on the geostrategic chessboard. Yes, it made us safer, but it also vindicated our core national identity. Democracy, it seemed to prove, is such a universal value that it will inevitably defeat dictatorship. Since 1989, this conclusion, which spans the ideological spectrum in America, has helped drive everything from U.S. support for expansion of trade with China to the collapse of the pro-American dictator in Indonesia to the war in Iraq and continued sanctions on Myanmar and Cuba.

In St. Petersburg, Russia, on a late November day, it gets dark quite early. I'd entered the State Hermitage Museum's staggeringly vast art collection (4 million artifacts! 20,000 paintings!) in sunshine, but when I emerged at 4 p.m., it was night. Trudging forth, through the gray snow, I felt nearly as weary as Napoleon, dragging himself back to Paris from Russia in defeat. Feeling peckish, I decided on a simple bowl of borscht. Little did I realize, however, that there's nothing simple about this most Russian of soups.

KOSICE, Slovakia -- A case making its way through the courts in Slovakia is giving a new sense of hope to Europe's most persecuted minority. But it also could be the catalyst that unleashes the Roma people's many decades of pent-up frustration. The number of Roma (Gypsies) in the European Union roughly tripled in January, when Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU, making the outcome of this case consequential for all Europeans - as it should be for people everywhere who care about justice.

Tracy Ann Foley loves to travel, and she does it the old-fashioned way -- backpacking. But her travel style -- like those of other college-age youths today -- is definitely cutting-edge. Unlike the backpacking travelers of earlier generations, who stuck mostly to Western Europe, Foley ranges far afield. She has trekked through Eastern Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand -- and so have many of her peers. Visiting such nontraditional destinations is a growing phenomenon among today's young travelers.

SEVILLE, Spain -- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has criticized U.S. moves to deploy parts of its missile defense system in Eastern Europe, saying yesterday that the plan to base interceptor rockets and radars in Poland and the Czech Republic appeared to be aimed at shooting down Russian weapons. Ivanov was in Spain for the regular meeting between NATO's defense ministers and their Russian counterpart, and his remarks came just hours after his first face-to-face meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in which the two discussed the U.S. missile defense plans.

In the summer of 2004, I was making my way from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Istanbul, Turkey, by bus and train. Traveling through Eastern Europe is an amazing experience. Everywhere you go, you are surrounded by evidence of ancient buildings and cultures. An unexpected destination during my travels was the graveyards across the region. The European style of caring for graveyards is to visit them frequently and adorn the graves with fresh flowers. In many ways, graveyards are beautiful, with engravings speaking of what the dearly departed meant to the family they left behind.