Quite a few people were net worse off after Soviet Union collapsed. I.e. if you had a secure job in some obscure government funded research institute, guaranteed income, free medical care and education for your kids, but now it's free market and no one is interested, so the institute is closed. Sure, there is now abundant food in the shop and you're free to travel abroad, but you have no money and at 40+ years old it's hard to start a new career.

Or maybe you are retired, etc.

Presumably the GPs lover was a young, western woman, and only inconvenienced by the collapse of the Soviet Union in an ideological manner.

Yes, exactly.