[xorcist]

You could just as easily argue that it was the Baltics that took the slow and steady approach. They built up a civil society to support the economic changes.

At least from the outside, it looks like the bigger country to the east just handed out private ownership to the upper echelon, because surely that's what made west economically successful.

Not sure how accurate that description is, of course. Their economies were vastly different from the start. The Baltic region also has historical and cultural ties to the Nordic region. But at least there are different viewpoints here.