There was still a ton of infrastructure that’s credited to the Soviets. And one of the big appeals of a place like Bulgaria is how you can privatize those incredibly valuable capital projects.

Then you build a gradient that siphons wealth from one corner of the county to another, you create a Rich cohort of professionals and a Poor cohort of day laborers, and you brag about all the new Burger Kings you’ve introduced to the post-Soviet frontier.

It’s possible that they were on the poor end of that spectrum. It’s also possible that $200/mo spent significantly farther than it does today.

Certainly, they weren’t homeless and they weren’t starving. That means their $200 was getting vastly more mileage than what an American in 2023 receives.