Eastern Europe bridges the gap between Western Europe and Russian. It has a great advantage of speaking Slavic languages, so it has that similar bridge to Russia. A majority were also former Eastern Bloc nations so they are already used to the Soviet system of commerce, but being that it is modern times, they are also part of the EU. Poland, Czech Republic and Slovak Republic are all former Eastern Bloc nations that have rebounded their economies after the breakup of communism to and have strong democracies to help them be part of the West.