Why? To dictate the terms of the market. How? With military.
Moreover, it is a generally well known economic principle that capitalism entails cyclical crisis periods for self correction. Usual way to deal with it is debt and expansion of markets. Debt levels today are unprecedented while there are no significant new markets to expand into (China and Eastern Europe including Russia are already absorbed into the market). Raw materials (including fresh water and air) are more valuable than ever.
> Financially we’ve never been better: our PIB is at an all time high and people enjoy Teslas and city breaks, ski vacations and shopping trips. Compare it to the 80's when we were cold, starving in lines for half a bread and a bottle of milk.
Huge part of personal wealth in Eastern Europe is actually a relic of socialist times - housing. Eastern European countries have by far the highest rate of home ownership as a result of socialism. In the developed world, China is the leader of home ownership rates.
You do know that 80s were quite unpleasant everywhere? In the decades prior USSR was outperforming the US economically. Also Yugoslavia, a socialist country outside the Iron Curtain, had a better living standard than some countries in Western Europe prior to 1980s. This is actually quite an achivement given how devestated and underdeveloped the region was following WWII and no Marshal Plan to help.
Anyway, I actually live in Eastern Europe. It is a great place to live in, but it is not economically prosperous. A great majority of people certainly cannot afford things you list (I know many people who live 30 mins away from ski slopes but the majority can hardly afford ski passes) and live a very spartan lifestyle.
Russia also has plenty of rich people taking holidays and driving expensive cars, but a great majority of Russians certainly cannot afford those things. While we are at it, look at how many Chinese tourists there are. In most expensive Western cities (eg. Sydney) property purchases by Chinese have driven property prices up significantly.
But none of that means anything. Plenty of people from Eastern Europe still want to emigrate. Birth rates are decreasing every year because it is very hard for young families to purchase their own home (see for the situation in Poland [0]). And whats more, there are plenty of people that are still quite nostalgic for old times due to social security it provided (again see Poland [1]).
[0] https://serwisy.gazetaprawna.pl/nieruchomosci/artykulyhttps:...
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/pops.12330