[ido]

I was surprised for the opposite reason - I was recently in Croatia and from the outside it seems ("developmentally") indistinguishable from any nearby rich country such as Italy or Germany. We live in Germany and used to live in Austria and the main visible difference was that it seems Croatians don't mind littering their archaeological sites (which is more cultural than economic I guess).

Maybe Russia is as well these days, and my perception of it as a bit of an industrial/economic shit-hole is due to now-outdated western propaganda.