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Early EASTERN EUROPE under the Roman rule was Greek speaking, while the west was largely Latin. From the early middle ages, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Byzantine Empire, thrived for a good 1,000 years and more. The rise of the Frankish Empire in the west, and in particular the great schism that formally divided Eastern and Western Christianity, enhanced the cultural and religious distinctiveness between Eastern and Western Europe. The conquest of the Byzantine Empire, center of the Eastern Orthodox Church, by the Muslim Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, and the gradual fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire thereafter, eventually leading to communism in the 19th century have all greatly impacted and changed the fabric of Eastern Europe.

Post World War II, Europe was mostly polarized between the mainly capitalist Western Bloc, and the mainly communist Eastern Bloc. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain. In this divide, Eastern Europe was mainly composed of all the European countries liberated and then occupied by the Soviet army. It included the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).

Though all the countries in Eastern Europe adopted communist modes of government and were officially independent from the Soviet Union, the practical extent of this independence - except in Yugoslavia, Albania and to some extent Romania - was quite limited.

With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 the political landscape of the Eastern Bloc, and indeed of the world, changed. West and East Germany unified. And in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Many European nations which had been part of the Soviet Union regained their independence (Lativia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine and Belarus). Czechoslovakia peacefully separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) fell apart, creating several new nations in 1992: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia & Montenegro (in 2006). All this is probably why Eastern Europe embedded with mind-churning history, is such a beautiful place to visit and experience. From Castles, Palaces, Churches and Mosques to the streets, rivers and the country side, Eastern Europe truly takes your breath away.