Der Perlentaucher unter den Buchläden Eichendorff21

**Katarzyna Czerewacz-Filipowicz** \- a Doctor of Political Science, an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Economic and Social Sciences in Bialystok University of Technology. A Visiting Researcher of the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU- CRIS), Brugge, Belgia and Warsaw School of Economics, Warsaw, Poland. She specializes in international economic processes of regional integration. The main area of her interest is the post-Soviet region with a special focus on the groupings functioning there. She has written and edited a number of papers and monographs on economic and political integration. The head of the research grant No.2011/03/B/HS4/05930 funded by the National Science Centre on "Economic consequences of regional integration processes in the area of the Commonwealth of Independent States". **Agnieszka Konopelko** is a Doctor of Political Science. She teaches political science and international relations at Faculty of Management in Bialystok University of Technology. She was a Visiting Researcher of the University of Quebec, Trois-Rivieres, Canada and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. She is a member of many professional scientific associations. Her research interests include transformation and democratization processes in the post-Soviet area and the relations of the post-Soviet countries with the European Union. She was awarded the Medal for Long Service by the President of Poland. She has published numerous articles and chapters on political and economic development in the post-Soviet area.