The former communist states set to join the European Union in four months are embracing the West in wholehearted fashion

The former communist states set to join the European Union in four months are embracing the West in wholehearted fashion — flexing their new market economy muscles in their own shopping centers and hypermarkets. The spatious well-lit stores chock full of food and merchandise are cropping up behind the old Iron Curtain, gleaming like jewels against the unadorned, grey, utilitarian architecture built for the old proletariat. Mass marketing - both the availabiity of goods and the buying power that makes one a full-fledged consumer - are still novel concepts in the former Soviet satellite states. "The people were frustrated by the lack of choice and the shortages under communism," said Tomas Krasny, director general of Incoma, a Czech marketing firm. "They now crave abundance." Thanks to very liberal laws, the hypermarkets generally remain open every day, some even 24 hours a day, even in Roman Catholic Poland where church tradition still upholds Sunday as the day of rest.