Accord). Greek Depression Beginning in 2009, Greece sank into a recession that, after two years, became a depression. The country saw an almost 20% drop in economic output, and unemployment soared to near 25%. Greece's high amounts of sovereign debt precipitated the crisis, and the poor performance of its economy after the introduction of severe austerity measures slowed the entire eurozone's recovery. Greece's troubles led to discussions about its departure from the eurozone. Post-Communism Depression The economic crisis in the 1990s that struck former members of the Soviet Union was almost twice as intense as the Great Depression in the countries of Western Europe and the United States in the 1930s. Average standards of living registered a catastrophic fall in the early 1990s in many parts of the former Eastern Bloc, most notably in post-Soviet states. Even before Russia's financial crisis of 1998, Russia's GDP was half of what it had been in the early 1990s. Some populations are still poorer today than they were in 1989 (e.g. Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Central Asia, Caucasus). The collapse of the Soviet planned economy and the transition to a market economy resulted in catastrophic declines in GDP of about 45% from 1990 to 1996 and poverty in the region had increased more than tenfold. Finnish economists refer to the Finnish economic decline during and after the breakup of the Soviet Union (1989–1994) as a great depression (suuri lama). However, the depression was multicausal, with its severity compounded by a coincidence of multiple sudden external shocks, including loss of Soviet trade, the savings and loan crisis and early 1990s recession in the West, with the internal overheating that had been brewing throughout the 1980s. Liberalization had resulted in the so-called "casino economy". Persistent structural and monetary policy problems had not been solved, leaving the economy vulnerable to even mild external shocks. The depression had lasting effects: the Finnish markka was floated and was eventually replaced by the euro in 1999, ending decades of government control of the economy, but also high, persistent unemployment. Employment has never returned even close to the pre-crisis level. Other depressions Global The late 1910s and early 1920s were marked by an economic depression that unraveled in particularly catastrophic circumstances: World War I and its aftermath led to a global nosedive in commodities that ruined many developing nations, while servicemen returning from the trenches found themselves with high unemployment as