> Poland and Greece are now just slightly below them in GDP per capita - and Lithuania is above them (unthinkable circa the mid 1990s)

Re Poland and Lithuania: USSR collapsed in early 90s, and many would have been forgiven for thinking that these countries would continue to live in poverty, which they obviously didn't. Notably, USSR was a donut empire where the peripheral regions were richer and more educated than the heartland. That's also why the collapse of USSR started there. Sarah Paine talks about that.