“I realized that something was changing when I went to the lyceum. Because it was a period when US series appeared about boys and girls, about how to dress, about the smartphones, about the relation between girls and boys. In that moment I realized that something has changed. Something is different now. Because when I was a little girl it wasn’t important how you dress and if your smartphone is more expensive than mine. If you had a more expensive smartphone or dresses, I would be your friend. The priorities are very different between the 90s and when I went to the lyceum, which was in 2010. I think it’s globalization, it’s a new thing. Now it’s more material, the feeling, the thinking about other people. It’s more superficial. That was the period when I understood that the people change. The method of thinking changed. That’s a good and bad thing about the West.”

Daniela Gologan, Foreign Policy Association, Moldova

At a conference in Thessaloniki in October 2015, we asked participants from Eastern and South-eastern Europe about their “Transition Moment”. Could they tell us a little story of a moment, when they realised that something was changing fundamentally in the early 90s.