Eastern Europe has risen after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Much is made of China's rise from poverty over the past 40 years, but the story of Eastern Europe is just as remarkable. After all, the region is now close to bridging the gap with the Western Europe. When the Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989, that moment instantly became a defining image of the late 20th century, an emotional snapshot frozen in time. Anyone old enough, aware, and sentient can likely tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. The end of the Cold War, the promise of democracy, and above all hope for a better future were all manifest in the moment. Now 30 years on, more of a prosaic outlook and some disappointments are clear in former Communist bloc countries. Nationalism and right-wing parties seem to be gaining strength in Eastern Europe and the flight of human capital to other countries is a problem for some. They still lag Western Europe in per capita income, quality of life, and overall development. But by most metrics, things have improved greatly.

The past three decades have brought some of the most dramatic economic growth any region in the world has ever experienced. People are living longer and healthier lives. The quality of air is better and individuals, on an average, are twice as wealthy. Going just by the numbers, some of the figures appear rather startling. Poland's GDP has risen 788 per cent since 1990, followed by the Slovak Republic at 739 per cent, Estonia at 592, Lithuania with 577, Romania at 514, the Czech Republic at 506, and Hungary with 348 per cent growth in the period. "In the last 25 years, Poland has offset 500 years of economic stagnation and shortened the distance to the West in terms of the level of income and quality of life to an extent never experienced before. Poland has entered its true Golden Age," Marcin Piatkowski, a former World Bank economist, wrote in a recently published book titled Europe's Growth Champion. He credits Poland's first economy minister in the open era with having the courage to introduce a shock therapy of sorts that was extremely painful, et equally effective. Leszek Balcerowicz, Poland's first postcommunist finance minister, launched ambitious reforms that liberalised prices, tightened fiscal and monetary policies, opened the economy to free trade and competition, and made the Polish currency convertible. Over the next two years, economic output fell,

wages collapsed, joblessness soared, and poverty rates went up...