When I was young I was engaged to a Bulgarian chap (going back to me being 17 here, so this is 1996ish) and I spent a lot of time there. His boss was high up in the Bulgarian mafia and so I was 'treated' to an insight of Eastern bloc life on many occasions. Luckily, his boss really liked me so I never had an issue but they had a long running feud going on with the Russian mafia and I was jostled out of places a few times 'before the shooting started', it was a grim existence they all had back then. The Russians controlled the prostitutes in the ski resorts and I saw and heard far too much about Russians like the Kremlin gremlin (still chuckling at that phrase!). They were nasty bastards to put it mildly and I don't think they've changed much. I'm not talking about your every day Russian person here, these are the politicians and mafioso, they are genuinely awful people with zero regard for human life. Nowt much has changed it seems, they still don't give a crap about life, no matter who it belongs to.