Published: Monday, 9 Nov 2009 | 9:52 AM ET

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In the dense forests of the idyllic Danube island of Persin, home to the endangered sea eagle and the pygmy cormorant, lie the ghastly remains of a communist-era death camp.

Hundreds "enemies of the regime" perished from beatings, malnutrition and exhaustion in 1949-59 in Bulgaria's Belene concentration camp, where dead bodies were fed to pigs.

Twenty years after the fall of communism, Belene is largely forgotten -- only a small marble plaque tells its horrific story. And nostalgia for the past is growing in the small Balkan country and across the former Soviet bloc.

Capitalism's failure to lift living standards, impose the rule of law and tame flourishing corruption and nepotism have given way to fond memories of the times when the jobless rate was zero, food was cheap and social safety was high.

"(The bad) things have been forgotten," said Rumen Petkov, 42, a former guard now clerk at the only prison still functioning on the Persin island.

"The nostalgia is palpable, particularly among the elderly," he said, in front of the crumbling buildings of another old jail opened on the site after the camp was shut in 1959. The communists imprisoned dozens of ethnic Turks here in the 1980s when they refused to change their names to Bulgarian.

Some young people in the impoverished town of Belene, linked to the island with a pontoon bridge, also reminisce: "We lived better in the past," said Anelia Beeva, 31.

"We went on holidays to the coast and the mountains; there were plenty of clothes, shoes, food. And now the biggest chunk of our incomes is spent on food. People with university degrees are unemployed and many go abroad." In Russia, several Soviet-themed restaurants have opened in Moscow in recent years: some hold nostalgia nights where young people dress up as pioneers -- the Soviet answer to the boy scouts and girl guides -- and dance to communist classics.

Soviet Champagne and Red October Chocolates remain favorites for birthday celebrations. "USSR" T-shirts and baseball caps can be seen across the country in summer.

While there is scant real desire for old regimes to be restored, analysts say apathy is a vital outcome.

"The big damage of the nostalgia...is that it dries out the energy for meaningful change," wrote Bulgarian sociologist Vladimir Shopov in the online portal BG History.

Disenchantment

Across former communist Eastern Europe, disenchantment with democracy is widespread and pollsters say mistrust of the elites who made people citizens of the European Union is staggering.

A September regional poll by U.S. Pew research centre showed support for democracy and capitalism has seen the biggest fall in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Hungary.

AP Vilnius old town, Lithuania

The poll showed 30 percent of Ukrainians approved of the change to democracy in 2009, down from 72 percent in 1991. In Bulgaria and Lithuania the slide was to just over half the population from nearer three-quarters in 1991.

Surveys by U.S.-based human rights group Freedom House show backsliding or stagnation in corruption, governance, independent media and civil society in the new EU-member states.

The global economic crisis, which has wounded the region and put an end to six or seven years of growth, is now challenging the remedy of neoliberal capitalism prescribed by the West.

Hopes of catching up with the wealthy Western neighbors have been replaced by a sense of injustice because of a widening gap between the rich and the poor.

In Hungary, one of the countries worst hit by economic downturn, 70 percent of those who were already adults in 1989 say they were disappointed with the results of the regime change, an October survey by pollster Szonda Ipsos showed.

People in the former Yugoslav countries, scarred by the ethnic wars from the 1990s and still outside the EU, are nostalgic for the socialist era of Josip Broz Tito when, unlike now, they travelled across Europe without visa.

"Everything was better then. There was no street crime, jobs were safe and salaries were enough for decent living," said Belgrade pensioner Koviljka Markovic, 70. "Today I can hardly survive with my pension of 250 euros ($370 a month)."

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