The Congress was organised by the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES), located at the Södertörn University, in Stockholm. The Centre organises international conferences, seminars and workshops. The researchers are in demand as experts in academia and in the public sphere. This year, it has been the 7th Annual Conference, and its title was 'With and after empire, enduring pasts across the local and the global". My talk's title was "Bridging the East and the West- the Orient Express as a driver of sociocultural development in the Balkans". I argued that the most famous of all the Balkan rail vehicles – the Orient Express – contributed to a significant extent to the overall cultural and social development of the region. Whether it was in terms of smuggling in large quantities of goods, or smuggling in Western values, ideas and lifestyles to the Balkans, the evolution of railways in the area brought not only economic and political, but also cultural changes.