All the Eastern Bloc states have similar curves. Not just a “temporary hiccup” in the adjustment from socialism to capitalism. The ones who were able to more quickly and seamlessly integrate into the imperial core (i.e. the Baltic states) saw a shallower curve than the states that were excluded from that but still had the wonders of capitalism forced on them (Russia, Ukraine), but they all experienced it.

I feel this is an important counterpoint to westerners who talk about how communism “has always failed when attempted”. Like, people in the USSR had a certain standard of living under communism. It took capitalism like 2 decades just to get to where things were under communism in Russia proper just from a national GDP perspective (I suspect, given income inequality, a working class Russian today is still worse off than they were in 1990). And in Ukraine, things have never recovered even from this angle. How is this not an obvious failure of capitalism?