BRATISLAVA, Slovakia -- This pleasant city on the Danube River is considered part of eastern Europe, although it is only as about as far from Vienna as Washington is from Baltimore (about 35 miles) and is, in fact, near the geographical center of the European continent.
Slovakia was the poorer part of the former Republic of Czechoslovakia until 1993 when the country split in two parts, one being Slovakia (the Slovak Republic) and the other the Czech Republic. Economic growth languished until a reform government took over in 1998, established a set of policies that gave it one of the highest growth rates in Europe (average of 7.2 percent from 2004 to 2008), and made it the world's 20th-freest economy, lagging behind only Estonia among the former communist countries.
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