24 years ago today---maybe it seems like no big deal now, but back then? The earth moved.

[DFW]

67. Bonn was always a sleepy, pretty college town on the Rhein.

It just went back to being pretty much that. It was the one thing the Easterners insisted on to bring about full unification: that Berlin once again be the capital. The West Germans weren't happy about it, as they thought that a Germany with Berlin as the capital brought back too many unpleasant memories, whereas a Germany with Bonn as the capital left the impressions of a docile pacifist Germany. The Germans in the west also found Bonn to be hugely practical, as they could just jump on a train and be in Amsterdam, Brussels or Paris in a few hours. Now they always have to fly.

Russia was a HUGE disappointment. Germany had a model that was in place and could be improved upon. The east just merged into it. But Russia had only the Czars and the Bolsheviks as historical precedent. They held elections, but Yeltsin was a heavy alcoholic, and just wasn't the man to lead the country to an enlightened democracy. Gorbachev might have, but departed the scene on his own accord, figuring (probably correctly) that even an enlightened communist was not the man to lead a post-communist Russia. Putin had no such qualms, and made himself Czar with another name. Dissident businessmen and journalists who are not murdered outright get jailed or exiled, and though you can get rich if you shut up and play along, the slightest misstep lands you penniless and in a dungeon.

The buffer states of Byelorossiya and the Ukraine are back in place. Hungary is a blank to me. I was there two years ago with my wife, and we had a good time (nem értem magyarul!), but as tourists in a country that depends heavily on tourism, you rarely get exposed to any inner turmoil before it boils over into full-scale rebellion.