go east

A lot of people ask me why I always travel to Eastern Europe, if everything looks the same and a bit dangerous… but they couldn’t be more mistaken, the so called East hides totally different cultures with incredible jewels away from the mass tourism.
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In this article, I call “Eastern” to all the countries that left the USSR orbit in the 90s, excluding the old Yugoslavia and actual Russia (and it’s little clone Belarus)

Balstei Bridge, Saxony

With the winds of change and the fall of the wall, a huge territory was now avaliable for exploring by the average tourist, but prejudices due to the soviet past keep being strong, a lot of people have travelled to the east side of Berlin and things that everything that lies from there is all the same, or that eastern Germany is not beautiful… And then you realize that things like this bridge fall into the description “everything is the same, and it’s ugly” ​

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Another classical example is how people (specially Americans) think Bratislava looks like, and this is the reality

So, in order to do the article more entertaining, I will use images to illustrate it. But remember that I'm showing you a small example of the things "The East" has.

Beautiful  cities

Nowadays nobody thinks that Prage is “an ugly socialist city”, but in all this territory there are many other big cities that are in fact more beautiful than many other famous ones in western countries.

imposing  capitals

But of course, the socialist legacy is still present in many cities, leaving a massive and imposing architecture

Charming towns

incredible  places

Because cities are not everything in the east, there are many other surprises that, like that bridge in Germany, doesn’t appear in many turistical magazines. This places doesn’t need to be just nice, but also “special”, for example, you won’t expect to be able to visit an intercontinental nuclear missile silo in France right? In Ukraine, you can.

Castles

Well, I think it’s getting clear that these countries are not just “the old USSR”, but countries with huge history behind, history that takes us to the medieval ages thanks to these magnificent castles

Different  traditions

To finally make it clear, that each country is very different to its neightbour, I will show you several examples to stop you from believing that “everybody is Russian there”

not  just  vodka

There is not only vodka in these countries, but a lot of different national drinks (such as German Jägermeister)

But there is also room for beer! Many of these countries have a special style of drinking beer, in Czechia they drink more Pilsen style beer (actually, it was first made there), other countries fancy dark beer, with honey or even hot beer!

crazy stuff

But something that is really cool in the East, is the huge amount of crazy things you can do, from spending the night in an ex soviet prison, to party in a fallout shelter, also, many activities that are very expensive in western countries become affordable, such as skydiving for 40 euro, bungee jumping for 15, trying bobsleight…

soviet  heritage

But, 50 years of soviet ocupation have left permanent scars, leaving similarities to all these countries, so it’s not difficult to find any of the following things in any eastern country

And this is the end of the article, there is much more to tell, due to the fact that every country is a world, so it worths to visit all these countries that reborn 25 years ago. Usually prices are much lower than an average holiday destination and the amount of things you can do is huge!