Which unfortunate country experienced both of those transformations? Afghanistan? South Yemen?
It's fun to notice similarities from the past. Did you know that when your economy collapses, the quality of ketchup nosedives and you end up with ketchup having strange color and wrong texture?
But there are of course so many differences too, the first 10 years of Turkey's transformation were mostly for the better. The later 10 so far are 90's Bulgaria level.
Shopping malls get less maintenance, supermarkets start turning off the air conditioning.
You start seeing some new products with clear packaging, almost as if they were packaged in a small room with no access to industrial packaging.
Generally that kind of stuff, not very surprising. The ketchup was surprising, wasn’t expecting to see an item from my childhood.
Turkey has some strong advantages over Bulgaria(there’s no change in the how economy works, it was just mismanaged), so it’s not that bad in the terms of impact on daily life but it’s still interesting to recognize patterns.
The most unfortunate one is the rise of organized crime. Bulgaria was a center of international crime rings throughout the 90’s. Turkey is currently in the same spot. There were many murders of mob bosses, just like in 90’s Bulgaria the organized crime leaders kill each other.
The impact of the organized crimes on daily life is that some sectors are taken over by gangs and some people who used to be nobodies become very rich and they show it. In response to that, the youngsters lose fate in education and they try to pursue similar path to become rich.
In the recent few months the new interior minister is conducting police raids on gangs, so maybe things can change.