OUT OF A BACK-PACK AND ON THE VELVET RAILS: My 20 Year Old Self Almost 30 Years Later Reliving Along With You Straight From My Journal

SUMMER 1992 BACKPACKING ACROSS EUROPE FOLLOWING THE VELVET REVOLUTION.

The Velvet Revolution was the end of the “Cold War”; the historical period in time in which the fall of The Berlin Wall along with the fall of communism occurred across what had previously been the USSR & Eastern Europe resulting in new borders and new countries. This sojourn includes expeditions into some of these countries through this region that had been blocked from travel for decades during the Cold War.

It was given the name “The Velvet Revolution” simply because it happened relatively smoothly, seamlessly, rapidly & (again relatively) without war or strife. It opened up countries and areas of Eastern Europe and the countries that had all been a part of the USSR for the first time in decades since Communism and the Cold War had been going on. These countries had their national identities back again, their ability to each start new trajectories across every sector of government, politics, trade, finance and life on every level. By Summer of ’92 some intrepid travelers were venturing into a few areas. Mostly however much of this region and most of these countries, despite…