Does the global ranking of nations by 'standard of living' surprise you?

Russia crashed to rock bottom in the 1990s as a result of mass privatization (millions and millions of people lost their jobs, factories closed at a rate unprecedented in history, public services collapsed, the ruble suffered hyper-inflation, crime skyrocketed, and many Russians became dependent on "foreign aid" from the West for everything from food to school supplies), and it's only relatively recently that living standards in Russia have improved somewhat as things have stabilized under Putin's policies. The "prosperity" of post-Soviet Russia has mostly been enjoyed by the wealthy ownership class which now monopolizes Russia's industry and resources, whereas the working class scrapes by on what they can get. Which is essentially the capitalist definition of prosperity; as long as the rich are doing well, all is fine and dandy, so the West looks at today's Russia and nods in approval (even if they don't like Putin personally because he refuses to be their puppet like Yeltsin was). But for the Russian working class, living standards are still lower than they were in the USSR. Not as much lower as they were in the Yeltsin era, but still lower. Which is why there are frequent polls there in which solid majorities of Russians say they regret the abolition of the Soviet Union and would support its reestablishment. In fact the numbers saying so in those polls have been climbing in recent years.

Americans love to red-bait Putin and call him a communist, but in reality he's probably the only thing that prevented the restoration of socialism in Russia after Yeltsin destroyed the country (under Yeltsin, Russia almost had a revolution in 1993, and the only reason the Communist Party didn't win the 1996 election was because Yeltsin blatantly rigged it with the help of the US - you know, in the interest of "democracy"), as Putin reined in Yeltsin's ruinous Western-backed "shock therapy" economics and replaced it with a more regulated state-guided system. And even now he's still probably the only thing standing in the way of the return of socialism. It will be interesting to see what happens once Putin retires and his strong hand is no longer at the helm, because there's really nobody in a position to fill his shoes.

The index seems to be politically biased.

European countries that had non-woke governments are heavily penalized. They placed Hungary below Greece... like WTF? (Greece has barely improved since it went bankrupt). Poland is placed the #36, when it's one of the European countries that has been doing better.

South Africa is placed at the same level that countries like Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan or Poland. Is that a joke? South Africa has become a shithole. People there live being afraid of being killed or raped. The country can't even properly supply electricity or water anymore (many factories are closing because of the lack of proper power supply). WTF?

I thought Hong Kong might be higher and I was surprised Saudi Arabia was in the top 35.