I am just back from Bucharest where I attended a (really boring) EU project meeting (no offence intended for any of the participants, I think we would all agree). My impression of the city was very bad. Apart from old Communist style buildings, the center was quite dirty and dodgy. Services were way behind EU standards but at least, the food was good, beer is cold and people are nice.
A couple of colleagues from Greek institutions mentioned that there were Greek companies taking over in Romania, since it became the land of opportunities after Ceaucescu´s fall in 1989. Particularly, they talked about Cosmote, a subsidiary of Cosmote Greece, the largest mobile network operator in Greece, member of the OTE group. I was surprised to see that Cosmote also bought Germanos Group, a famous chain of stores mostly devoted the electrical devices, a kind of Mediamarkt. They also pointed at Everest, a fast-food chain from Greece.
That pointed out my total ignorance about companies and economic relationships in Eastern Europe, especially in South-Eastern Europe. A year and a half ago, when I was in Athens for a conference, I did not research or event think about most of these companies. However, they are now a good field to show up in future exams in my courses 
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