Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[Firn]

It is of course difficult to understand why things happen exactly in the way they happen. Maybe the cold does reduce the ability to create mass protests.

In any case it is difficult to imagine a strong economic development of this large country under the thumb of Russia. A closer integration of it's economy into the European on the other hand should help a considerable amount in the long term.

There a great amount of graphics showing the aweful performance of it's economy compared to other European countries of the ex-Warsaw Pact. One can argue that in geographic terms* the Ukraine got the shortest stick, being the distant from the economic clusters of the West but by any benchmark the 'progress' has been terrible.




Shocking indeed.



*Poland, a country of roughly similar dimensions, has the huge advantage to be close to Germany (and Souther Scandinavia).





Just the monthly salaries per oblast, but it indicates that the Ukraine has a reversed economic landscape compared the rest of the Eastern European countries, in which generally the regions closer to the West (plus the capital) are richer. Seems like the rich coal deposits kicked off the economic development based on heavy industry with the usual cluster effects, a bit like the old Ruhr.