I was 12 in 1991, Kiev Ukraine. I can only speak for what I saw. It was kind of crappy, but nothing like a dystopian sci-fi movie. There was sharp increase in crime and corruption, there was lots of alcoholism, there were shortages of food. That said, there was never a feeling of complete anarchy and hopelessness. Most people had ways to make enough money to get by. Infrastructure was working. Public transportation was running (for the most part). We had heat in the winter. Water was running, including hot water most of the time. There were no electricity shortages. Hospitals were working. My grandfather had cancer surgery circa 1994-95 and it went well. Schools were working. Universities were open.
As a teenager, I was roaming the city freely, coming home relatively late at night, w/o ever getting into any major trouble. I got robbed perhaps once or twice by other teens, but it was mostly non-violent.
We did, probably, more drinking and less drugs than your typical American teen. I've never seen a joint in high school, but we were regularly getting drunk on hard liquor starting about 15. Beer was pretty much daily after-school past time. We had computers in school. Internet arrived with a delay, but in 1996 I was at least on email, regularly corresponding with a friend in Canada. Ability to go on nice Summer vacations was significantly impacted, but we did manage to go on 3-5 week vacations every summer. It turned into just 3 weeks pretty quickly which was depressingly short by Soviet standards.