Comment by ecshafer

The history of Eastern Europe is very interesting, in how that came to be. A combination of pure immigration and settlement of peoples from the more populous low countries and Rhine valley to Eastern Europe. There was expulsion of Jews from central and western Europe, leading them to migrate to Eastern europe for the comparative religious tolerance. Then there was the hanseatic league, which created German cities, settlements and districts throughout the East to bring goods west as part of a vast trade network. Then German miners and engineers being brought east to exploit mineral wealth. This isn't taught much in the western schools, but its fascinating confluence of factors that lasted hundreds of years in early modern europe that created this total lack of homogenous populations in eastern europe.