Every place has their pros and cons. Eastern Europe feels quite free in the context of daily living, but graft and corruption seem to be the mo of the powers that be.

A good deal of Eastern Europe is still quite homophobic and xenophobic, even if there are no actual discrimination laws in place.

Which part of Eastern Europe? I don't know the whole Eastern Europe really well but speaking for the Czech Republic (where I was born) I would say exactly the opposite is true at least when we are talking about tolerance to homosexuality... which might be related to the fact that unlike in the US or UK, religion has practically no influence here.

I base this mostly on what I see around me but I just tried to quickly google something and what I've found seems to support that - for example http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-hom...

I don't know about xenophobia - I don't see it but if there is something above the average it would probably be related to the fact that people are not used to 'xeno' elements because this has always been pretty homogeneous and closed society.

I'd say people in Eastern Europe are quite used to despising Jews. Also, if you are black or Hindu or Pakistani in Czech or Poland, you will notice.

Homophobes, well, not sure how it's in Czech Republic, but say Poland makes Bible Belt look like a bunch of agnostic wusses.

I am beginning to realize that I made a mistake when I started talking about Eeastern Europe as a whole. I am Czech and I only know the Czech Republic really well (and Slovakia, for obvious reasons).

And also Eastern Europe is apparently not as homogeneous as I made it to be - there are big differences for example between catholic countries like Poland and atheist countries like Czech Republic (tolerance to homosexuality, abortion and stuff like that are strongly related to religious views). Despising Jews? I have seen it way more in Western Europe than here.

And if you are black or Hindu or Pakistani please excuse that some people have some bias... please try to understand that this has been very closed society and up until recently there were no black or Hindu or Pakistani people at all. People could not travel during communist regime... there was basically no opportunity to learn tolerance to different cultures etc. Yes, there are some racists here (like everywhere else) but I believe that Czech people are generally above average tolerant. But I am obviously biased.

I'm dual Polish/US citizen. Yes, that's true. However, you need to adjust for cultural differences. I.e. in the US people in general smile to you and pretend they don't mind you're gay. But then, Prop 8 comes up in "liberal" CA, and what happens? Yeah, right liberal. ;-)

You see, the US culture is very, very fake. Americans are fake. They'll smile in your face, tell you how much they love you, and then talk sht about you behind your back and hate just as much as a stereotypical Pole will. The only difference is that in Poland people will tell you stuff in your face while in the US it is all love, sensitivity, smiles and roses and everybody is just trained to talk the talk. But they never walk the walk. The problem with Poles is they had enough communists telling them what to say to be ignorant to the whole political correctness thing.

My guess is that if we could get into people's heads you would see they think probably the same stuff in both places. When for that example they see a gay couple kissing in public. The difference is that in the US they will pretend they're fine with it (and then show you their hate when voting), while in Poland - yeah - they'll openly tell you what they think about you.

[citation needed]

Since I was talking about post-communist countries that were NOT part of Soviet Union I don't think that the Russian example applies here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6282131

true. So is the rest of the world. We are just lacking in the political correctness department.

..and Russians are just putting what you are lacking into a law.

LekkoscPiwa's comment and your reaction to it are IMO very interesting example of a different perception which can lead to so many misunderstandings. Your comment only makes sense if you include Russia into the term 'Eastern Europe' and technically you are right - Russia is part of Eastern Europe. But I am pretty sure that LekkoscPiwa did not mean it this way - when he said 'we' he almost certainly did not mean also Russia. This is a bit difficult to explain to people who are not from here but when we talk about this stuff here we say 'we' in a sense of countries that have similar cultural background - like Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland... Russia is completely different world and they certainly are not perceived as 'we Eastern Europe' - Russia is simply Russia, separate entity, not part of the team, different culture, different rules, even the alphabet is different.

Dear LekkoscPiwa, did I get it right?

I am sure you did not mean it that way but it might be interesting to know that many people would be seriously offended here if you included Russians into the perception of 'them' - people from outside of the Eastern block do not see internal differences important to people who lived inside - like the fact that 'Rusáci' occupied us for many years and are still perceived as the enemy by many people here. To make a simplified example to make it understandable - imagine someone talking about 'you western countries' and including example of 'your' behaviour - Nazi Germany.

Well no, I didn't include former USSR for the sake of discussion. Jew hatred in Poland is surprisingly common, despite actual Polish Jews being virtually extinct since WW2.

The fact that Russia is possibly even more xenophobic than Poland doesn't change much.

I'm Belarussian myself, so well aware of sentiments in the 'hood in either direction. The nuance is not lost on me :)

Jews were about 20% of population in Poland before WW2. Some cities, like Krakow or Lodz, this number was closer to 50%.

Go to Arizona or California and tell me if it is difficult to find people who hate Latinos who don't make even such a big minorities there as Jews used to in pre-war Poland.

This has nothing to do with Jews specifically. Look at this how Arabs are treated in France (Paris) or London.

Once a group that has different language, religion, customs, and its own ghettos is large enough - my guess about 1/3 of total population - the natives will react the way the do. Poland or US, doesn't matter.

Bluntly, I don't really care how Poles are perceived. There's little that can be done about it. And it's actually beyond funny to take the whole country and say "all Poles are like this". Try doing that with Israel or gay. All gay are this or in Israel people just hate Arabs. Try saying that. But, yeah as long as Poland or Russia goes you can degrade as much as you want. And I don't really care, it just shows you that people are racists/xenophobic even when they are victims of racism and xenophobia. Makes it just this much more funny.

I think that Russia today is closer in terms of crazy laws they put in place to the US than to Poland.