As someone who remembers well the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, and lived in Russia for a period during the tumultuous 90s, it's really sad to me how the hope of that era (despite the fact that it could easily be argued that what happened in the 90s really set the stage for today's government in Russia) has devolved into the autocratic dystopia that is present day Russia (and China, for that matter).

Sometimes I can't decide if Gen X in the US was the luckiest or unluckiest generation. On one handed we got to spend our teens and 20s during the 90s, one of the most hopeful/optimistic periods in human history (fall of the Iron Curtain, US budget surpluses, rise of the Internet), but on the other hand we got to see it all reverse in a scant 20 years: liberal democracy teetering across the globe, climate change not being some far off thing but an immediate concern, unimaginable wealth inequality, the rise of technology as a force used to destroy our social fabric, and just generally feeling so many people be angry/scared/depressed all the time. Hopefully "this too shall pass".

Edit: since many people seem to be misunderstanding what I was saying: yes, I know Russia was a complete, corrupt shit show in the 90s - I saw it first hand, and it was really, really sad. What I meant is that there was a ton of hope by many people (at least the Russians I knew/lived with in Moscow) when communism first fell that they would be able to transition to a successful democracy. Much of the sadness was that potential never came to fruition.