 The former Soviet Union had to deal with a number of unique obstacles during the post-Soviet transition including political reform, economic restructuring and the redrawing of political boundaries.The discomfort associated with these changes was not felt the same in each former Soviet republic.As a general rule, states to Russia's west, such as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, have fared slightly better than their eastern neighbors since the collapse of the Eastern bloc, while Russia itself and countries to Russia's east experienced greater difficulties and found themselves on worse footing immediately after dissolution.