At least in Latvia there were two options - spend (recklessly) as previous government (unsustainable in long term) or cut spending (austerity) to keep the debt at reasonable level.
it seemed that everyone in Eastern Europe had just lost every sense of dignity in the pursuit of dollars
It is understandable.
After a poor life in USSR - where anything imported from the West was almost idolized (plastic bags, jeans, etc...)
I had believed that Eastern Europeans were clever people, idealistic about socialism for the most part
George Orwell coined a great term - doublethink.
In public people were idealistic about socialism, but secretly they hated it.

Anyway - if you lived in SU you at least partially had to be a crook.
There were long queues and deficits in shops - many necessary goods were hard to obtain.
So friends or acquitances who worked in distribution were very valuable.
You could bribe them and get the goods you needed.
Stealing from kolkhozes also was popular (my parents did it when they worked there - their pay was not great and they could get food without standing in a long queue).
If you knew a mechanic - you also could get parts for your car much easier.
This so-called "blat" was everywhere.

So - naturally - people continued to act the same way after Soviet Union collapsed.
In capitalist economy - these actions are corruption.
In soviet socialist economy these helped people to survive.
I saw some families living in squalor. I would not surprise me if these places were deliberately abandoned on purpose, by everyone in power.
At least in Daugavpils mostly russians are in power.
and as a source of manpower for jobs that are hard to fill in Western Europe
And Latvian companies import even cheaper workers from Ukraine and Belarus.
(Latvia also is attractive for them, because they have more rights (at least compared to Belarus) and they can speak Russian here)

or repatriated to Russia in a dignified way
To get most of Russians living here to move to Russia - you need a different process called "forced deportation" - because they simply do not want to go there - life here is better - most of people who wanted to live in Russia are already there.

Those who want to leave - go in the opposite direction - to the EU.
(Some of Russians I know work in Ireland and UK - and they say that they are not stupid to go to Russia - EU is much better).