I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well tonight … I trust that your journey … has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land. BRAM STOKER DRACULA NOVEMBER 2002-JANUARY 2003 The Danube and the Carpathians are the two dominant geographical features of the next four lands on my journey, taking me from the Balkans back to the Black Sea and then looping back into the heart of central Europe. Along with Poland, Hungary spearheaded the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe in that year of miracles, 1989. Romania, by contrast, never really got round to throwing out the communists until the December 2004 elections removed their socialist heirs from power, even if it showed a particularly bloodthirsty zeal for getting rid of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Moldova is a land torn between allegiance to Romania and Russia, its sense of nationhood stunted at birth. And in many ways – when I was in the country and indeed until its own elections of December ’04 changed everything – Ukraine was the most disappointing of the four: still in the thrall of a communist leader, Leonid Kuchma, who baulked at all economic reforms and rules in a way that the old Kremlin hardliners would have applauded.
