[Steely Tom]

The student said, “I’ve never even heard of the Balkans before”—even though he went through K-12 nd is now in college.

Well to be fair I don't think I ever heard of "the Balkans" while I was growing up, including in college.

Of course back then "the Balkans" were behind the iron curtain, mostly inaccessible to Americans, just part of the USSR. The only way I would have heard of the Balkans is if they had an Olympic skating team or such, which of course they didn't.

[Fiji Hill]

Of course back then "the Balkans" were behind the iron curtain, mostly inaccessible to Americans, just part of the USSR.

None of the Balkans were part of the USSR. Only Bulgaria, a member of the Warsaw Pact, was a Soviet ally. Albania and Yugoslavia were independent Communist states, and Greece was a NATO member.