"The meaning of luxury has changed," Çiğdem explains matter-of-factly. "When Sardinia was developed by Kerim Aga Khan, he called his friends and they came to see him. Same in Monaco. Everyone was friends or friends of friends from the same social background. Now the world is more socialist. People have more money and access to places like this."

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Antalya has become the holiday haven of choice for middle-class Russians who fly in nonstop from Moscow. It's my last destination in Turkey, and Ipek bails, saying it is time to go visit her parents in Cesme. Though surrounded by ice-capped mountains, the city reminds me of Coney Island by way of Las Vegas. Most visitors come for a week's stay at one of the kitschy all-inclusive resorts—all built in the last ten years. The Kremlin Palace has red and gold onion towers; the Queen Elizabeth resembles a beached cruise ship, complete with cabin windows and red-and-white-striped steam stacks on the roof; and the Venezia, with its replica of the Piazza San Marco surrounded by a swimming pool, steps up again to play the Elm Street of vacation themes. Now a new crop of luxurious hotels are being built to accommodate those wanting the very best. At the end of Lara Beach, for instance, are the ornate golden gates of the $500 million super-opulent Mardan Palace, the brainchild of Russian mogul Telman Ismailov, which is scheduled to open this spring and includes a life-size replica of Dolmabahçe Palace, with gold-leaf ceilings and elaborate Baccarat crystal banisters.

I stay at the Russian-owned Calista Luxury Resort, which opened a year ago in Belek, twenty minutes outside Antalya, and am surprised by how much fun I have. (Apparently word is already out in Russia, since all 550 rooms are booked.) I race around the manicured grounds, past swimming pools and hookah bars filled with gangs of teenagers and stroller-pushing parents, before taking in a floor show in which buff young male dancers in New Wave hairdos and Spandex pants catch air with their feet in some sort of 1980s polka. The after-party is an Ibiza-style White Party but with kids and adults mimicking the go-go dancers grinding on podiums. At one point the emcee shouts out, "Give it up for Kazakhstan! Ukraine! Latvia!" I feel like Borat in reverse. After a few gratis mojitos (included in the room rate), I join in.

During nearly fifty years of Tito's Communist reign, the sun-blessed beaches, islands, and coastal cities of Croatia's central Dalmatian Coast became the holiday party-spot of choice for Eastern Bloc–ers and bargain-hunting Europeans. A soft, cypress-flecked Italianate landscape mixes with the invisible but palpable wounds from the region's troubled past. Although resentments still linger from the brutal war with Serbia that ended just over a decade ago, Croats' desire for prosperity and EU membership has become the top priority. The historic fifteenth-century city of Dubrovnik, filled with grand people-watching piazzas, may be way overpriced, but it buzzes with cruise ships and ritzy hotels. The five-star Kempinski Adriatic plans to open this May in Istria, a peninsula in the north of the country that's only thirty miles from Venice.