Impressions of Yugoslavia

These are the impressions we got of Yugoslavia from the few people who could and would talk to us about anything slightly political:

The country was under Russian/communist rule up until WWII, then during the German infiltration of Yugoslavia a new leader emerged, Tito, who led the country into "independence" and a new form of socialism. Ten years ago Tito died and the government since then has been socialist, but the feeling is that in the next elections (96) the country will be fully democratic and is trying desperately to join the EEC. There post boxes are yellow like in Greece, and I have heard that the English red ones are now also painted yellow. There are mixed feelings about whether Tito was good or bad, but there are still streets named after him and statues to the soldiers of the liberation army. There are many different nationalities here. The Bulgarians have apparently been coming in in droves taking all the Jobs. There is incredible unemployment. Yugoslavia has several sections within it: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia&Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia. They all feel extremely loyal to their regions, and there are now meetings going on to form a looser federal government, with less centralized power. The Serbs and Croats hate each other. There are of course Russians here, and many other languages are spoken. The standard language that people presume we speak is German, as in Thessaloniki they would always start with "Spreken die Deutch?"