Oh, and where does it say that the shop shelves were empty, people stood in lines for hours with food stamps only to receive too little to get by? Or that everything valuable Poland produced was "exported" to (read: stolen by) the Soviet Union? Or that people already kept leaving Poland en masse while it was still a Soviet satellite state? Keep spewing your propaganda which makes communist Poland appear like a socialist paradise but my friends and family lived in that reality. Listing such ridiculous facts and telling us that we were better off under Soviet rule is like pissing on our faces and saying that it's raining. And for fuck's sake, yes, our military was downsized, terrible. A military that existed to counter the NATO which we now belong to. Grow a brain.

I'm not defending PRL (dark times indeed) but there are some lost opportunities. Like Ustawa Wilczka* - I still miss people trading on szczęki** or from the backs of their cars and shiver every time I have to enter a galeria handlowa***. Or education system - what was wrong with 8/4/5?

For non-Polish GOGers :)
* Very liberal legislation that made it possible to run businesses for individuals
** Now empty 'szczęki'
*** Shoping center, for some reason called 'shopping gallery' in Poland. Why? I have no idea.

Can you grow a brain to read my words instead of making up my thoughts? "How media portrays Poland" and "How I see Poland" are different things. I have read autobiography of Joanna Chmielewska, one of my favourite writers, and more or less aware about problems. They were the same everywhere. USSR was ineffective system. Everyone was equally poor.
About population: http://i.imgur.com/5QKkv4h.png - During soviet control Poland's population grew. Each year there were more workers to support older generation. Now country grows older and older, with a bit grim future.
Especially if you take into account how Poland fill shelves; ~10% of Poland budget are credits. Time to pay inevitably would come and you will see another Greece. Creditors would take profitable companies and you will see empty shop shelves again.

Oh yeah, it's really great to fill your arguments with quotes which do not actually represent your view or you possibly do not agree with. Either way, okay, tell us Poles how the quality of life is going down with random quotes while I see it steadily going up with my very own eyes.

Poland's (not that notably) shrinking population is a recent trend that ended in 2007. Poland's all-time high was 38.66 million people in 1999 which then slowly decreased for a while until it hit 38.12 in 2007 and has grown back up to 38.53 million in by 2013, pretty close to the all-time high. It actually grew by 300k people in 2011 alone. Germany's population shrunk by 800k that year. Poland's and Germany's fertility rates have actually been at similar levels over the last couple of years. Yes, you're right, Poland is in one deep mess, as is Germany, obviously. Derp.

Let's take a look at Russia's population stats: 148.2 million in 1996, 141,9 by 2009, went back up to 143.5 million in 2013, still far below it's all-time high. I don't know how to break it to you but... Russia is obviously in one deep mess by your own logic.

Also let's look at the median age: OMG, it's 40+ for almost the entirety of Europe including Russia. Man, we're all fucked anyway...

Let's look at some economic statistics: between 1994 and 2011 Poland's GDP per capita was actually higher than Russia's. Only recently Russia's actually surpassed Poland's, the latter's being comparably stable right now - Russia's rising rapidly until 2013 but actually falling since the conflict in Ukraine. Poland's rising more slowly but still rising. Let's now look at the debts: Poland's is 200 billion, like Russia's. Germany's is 2 TRILLION. Wow. But hey, what is debt without the context of the GDP? Oh my God! Poland's government debt as % of GDP as of 2012 was actually far lower than any other major European country's. In 2014 Germany's was 76%, the UK's a woopin' 90,6% while Poland's was 57%.

So, in what universe is Poland the next Greece? Enlighten me.

To play devil's advocate here - hidden debt is tree times bigger and our retirement system is broken beyond repair :)

OT:
It never fails to amuse me when the West calls Russia part of Europe. Guys, no offense, but we're actually Eurasia and the largest part of our territory lies east of the Urals. Just for reference, Europe's territory is (roughly) 10 mln. sq. km while our Asian part is (roughly) 13 mln. sq. km (both values rounded down, but you get the picture; clarification: by Europe here I mean the whole continent, including its Russian part).
Yeah, yeah, I kind of get why you want us to be Europeans, but I sometimes wonder whether we should want it.
/OT

But every country has varying amounts of hidden debts and Greece actually officially had a debt of 175% of GDP in 2013. There are still worlds between Poland's debt and that of other European member states and pinning the "next Greece" thing on Poland out of all countries is just beyond stupid.

As for the retirement system - we'll see. The most shocking thing I see right now is that there are huge amounts of people who work as contractors and knowingly choose to go without health insurance because they have no trust in both our health care and retirement system, thus contributing to its pitiful state themselves and also hurting their very own retirement. I have a hard time blaming the system when there's an entire generation of middle class idiots who walk around with such an irresponsible hippie attitude that only worsens the situation that they are complaining about. But the true irony is how regular citizens and politicians point to Germany as the nation whose example we need to follow but actually bitch whenever it is suggested to introduce solutions that are inspired by Germany. Everyone wants German living standards without any of the German obligations. That's mindblowingly fucked up.
Maybe it's because there's barely a living soul to the East of the Urals. And culturally Russia is more related to Europe than Asia.

Learn to read, ffs. I have answered to the question "What is general mood in Russia toward Poland", asked by worrying tburger. He wanted mood, not "Tell me how bad I live". I suppose pole knows better what is life in Poland, right?
It is a common problem, not specific for Poland. Though, Germany can attract youths from over the world with its top-notch education and high-tech plants, can Poland do this?
Yes, we are in deep mess. Fall of USSR, then default, then 2008 crisis... Fertility rates were low for 2 generations.
GDP per capita is one thing, GDP by sector is another.
62,3% of GDP (2012) are in "services" - credits, insurance, mortgage...
Taking credits to pay off previous credit... Do you know anecdote about 2 men on uninhabited island with chest of gold? They started from 1 coin for fish and ended with 10kg of gold for fish.
This area tend to shrink the most during crises. I expect one soon.
Then would start to matter trade balance. And Poland has negative -2,1 billion Euro.
Polish gross external debt $326 billion (20 January 2014), more than twice bigger than total export.

True, the population's density is meh. That's why our leaders are working on the region's population growth, giving those who decide to settle there certain preferences. By the way, maybe you want to go there, eh? There's plenty of land to grow apples... and stuff. Part of Europe, mostly the Slavic peoples, maybe Finland as well, but there's a reason behind it. Unless you count numerous attempts of conquest from the West cultural ties of sorts. Also, yes, most of the tzars were closely tied to Europeans with family bonds, but we don't have tzars anymore and can choose whatever path suits us most.
And again I wonder if now's the time to take a look at the East for a change. How do you say it, "Coś się kończy, coś się zaczyna"? :-)

you really think it's just the tzars?
Just look at the millions of russian or people with russian roots who live in (mostly eastern) europe. Then there is all the economic relationships. You have to close your eyes _really_ hard to deny the ties between russia and europe.
If everybody would just stop drawing up lines and pretending we have nothing do with each other .... *sigh*
The only relationship you could actually cut is the political one. Everything else, cultural connections, historical connections,families, friends, ... will all still be there.

//ot
Even more ironic when you look behind the nice economic statistics of Germany and see all the deep social problems that come from making money/profit the topmost priority. There should be more people "bitching" about "german solutions" in europe. The economy doing well doesn't equally mean the people are doing well.

To be honest here, I would've left government healthcare and retirement system long time ago. Actually I belong to a private retirement fund and that's the only retirement benefit I'm expecting to see when I'm old. Money send to ZUS by my employer feels more like money flushed down the toilet than invested in any way. I would gladly pick some private healthcare system instead of ZUS' joke if I had a chance but I can't because there is no such thing in Poland.
So, you suggest Germany's way, I'd rather see Switzerland system.
We (Poles) argue about it since forever :) My personal answet - 'Bad, but could be worse'.

True, but having lived in both countries for a long time I assure you that people living in Germany are much happier on average.

Man, Russians live everywhere, as do Chinese, Indians, Negr... whatever you call those people in your country. Still I wouldn't say that China has a lot of cultural connections with Germany or India with Brit... (OK, bad example, let me change that to "Africa with Russia") and let's not even get started with Jews. :-)
So I wouldn't say it's about who lives where. Economic relationships? In modern world almost everyone is (or can potentially be) connected with everyone else (except those who pissed Wash-ton - until recently). So yeah, we do business and in the process have some influence on each other, but still... Most of the European countries are just that - partners. Political, economical, military or otherwise. Maybe that's enough for you to call us one big family, I don't know.
Wanna know with whom we have strong cultural, historical and other ties? Belorussia, Ukraine (or, well, had until someone from Grey House decided that it needs more democracy and a coup), Serbia (can't say about everyone, but many Russians (myself included) feel guilty that we couldn't prevent the sacking of Yugoslavia; yes, yes, we had a ton of problems, Boris Yeltsyn for president and a deep crisis, I know. Hell, I wasn't even old enough to be able to do anything about it! Still, I feel as though we failed them). Finland, probably, we visit each other a lot, have a common history and stuff. Maybe Greece, to a lesser degree. Ex-USSR republics, but not all of those. Then there are the countries of BRICS. I'll give it some more thought in the morning, when I'm not that sleepy.

To make it appear as if I'm staying on topic: there's an old picture titled "what a national border between Russia and Ukraine should be like". Maybe someday, when all this madness ends, it will regain its actuality.

I'd like to disagree.
We got strong cultural influence from Europe when hiring foreign babysitters for noble kids was a thing.
Then some of these kids popularized foreign tales between common folk. Like our beloved poet of african heritage, Pushkin.
Little red riding hood? ->Красная шапочка (Red hat)
It continued in XX century, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ->The Wizard of the Emerald City
and continues now.
I witnessed a case where people used quenya to talk to each other, because it was only one common language for them.

Europe does have a thing in its culture which we don't - "burden of the white man". You can see this in Mayne Reid stories or in the Kipling's poem of the same name http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man%27s_Burden

My point wasn't that there are russians living in europe, but that there are _lots_ of them. Alone in Germany there are over 1million. If you accept the family ties of the old tzar families why are you ignoring the people today who have ties to both countries?
And the number of russians living here is on a whole different level than let's say people from china, india or the US.
Similar, at least for the german industry, russia is not just some trade partner among others, but a fairly important one.
Just a few days ago we had quite a few headline about a company going out of business because of the sanctions against russia.
And I was always under the impression that the EU is an important trade partner for russia as well( i am to lazy though to look for some numbers)
Obviously you are correct in saying that the connections between russia and belorussa, ukraine and a few others is a stronger one. But that doesn't negate the fact that there are ties between russia and the rest of europa as well.

curios: what is the connection greece<->russia? probably sth one should know or could look up(but again, laziness wins :p)

on average being the keyword here ;).yes, on average life is really good in germany.
But I don't wanna derail this thread with my frustration about german politics, so maybe let's just stop here.