Agony and ecstasy of creeping `normalisation'

i almost tripped over Erik before I saw him sitting on a step in Tallinn's biggest, noisiest nightclub. He gestured to me to join him and after a few words in Estonian, he settled down for a long chat in gently accented English.

He pointed out all the local celebrities, poured scorn on Estonia's recent Eurovision victory and gave me a list of all the other clubs I should visit that night. Then he stopped, looked at me and asked me how old I was. But before I had time to speak, he decided to hazard a guess.

"Are you 28?" he said.

That's when I realised that Erik was on drugs.

Among the special joys of travelling in Eastern Europe has long been the lack of drugs in the club scene. Heroin is, of course, a problem in many cities and alcoholism is epidemic throughout the region.

But until recently, party drugs were almost unknown. And although much of the amphetamines that fuel Germany's all ight club scene are manufactured in Polish bathrooms, the Poles themselves stayed clear of them.

As I glanced around the dance floor in Tallinn, I noticed a few dozen others with the same, empty grin that ecstasy had plastered all over Erik's face. And within a couple of minutes, Erik had taken a small plastic envelope from his pocket and handed a little white tablet to a passing friend.

Chatting later to Alexei, a member of Estonia's Russian minority, I learned that Tallinn has joined every other European capital in regarding hallucinogenics as a normal part of a good night out. In this, as in so much else, the formerly communist lands have joined the European mainstream.

In Warsaw the following day, the streets were unusually quiet around 7 p.m. The reason was that everyone was at home watching Big Brother. The Polish version of the series is so popular that one of the ousted candidates has announced that he will stand for election to parliament in September. And most pundits think he has a good chance of winning a seat.

The keen interest in Big Brother contrasts sharply with the blank indifference that has greeted the trial of Poland's last communist leader, Gen Wojciech Jaruzelski, for his alleged part in shooting striking shipyard workers in 1970.

A recent opinion poll showed that many Poles not only sympathise with the frail general but have come around to the view that his imposition of martial law 20 years ago may have been, as he always claimed, a necessary step to avert a Soviet invasion. Younger Poles glaze over when Solidarity veterans recount their exploits in the fight for freedom, a phenomenon that one described to me in colourful terms.

"We're sick of the fact that, for years, you couldn't make a sandwich without your granny piping up from the corner about how long she once had to queue for the two slices of ham you're using," he said.

If the creeping normalisation of Eastern European society has an upside, it has to do with a new openness about the complex nature of the historical legacy of a century dominated by dictatorship.

Poles are confronting their forefathers' role in persecuting Jews during the second World War. Elsewhere, young people are acknowledging that their parents were not always victims or heroes during the communist years.

A senior Polish official told me that this candour about the past chimes with a new sense of realism about the future as today's graduates begin to understand that the market economy does not promise automatic prosperity.

"In the early 1990s, they thought the world was at their feet and that they could do anything they wanted. Now they realise that a lot of the good jobs are already taken by people only a few years older than themselves. And they know that they will have to work hard to achieve even a modest improvement in their living standards," he said.

Back in Tallin, Alexei was dreaming of a move to Australia, partly because he is tired of receiving snooty treatment from the Estonian majority. But Erik was confident that his future in Tallinn was bright and prosperous.

Just before I left him, I asked what he did for a living. His pupils dilated a little more as he beamed happily at me.

"I'm a doctor. Didn't I tell you?" he said.