While there are unique features of the Soviet collapse,  there may be more general lessons to be drawn from this very important case. There is no doubt that the internal weaknesses of Soviet political and economic institutions, which failed to meet the aspirations of the people, were responsible for the collapse of the system. Economic stagnation for many years led to severe consumer shortages and a large section of Soviet society began to doubt and question the system and to do so openly.

In which region of the USSR the nationalist unrest was thought to be the strongest during the Cold war but in reality, it was not?

Central Asian Republics.

Ironically, during the Cold War, many thought that nationalist unrest would be strongest in the Central Asian republics given their ethnic and religious differences with the rest of the Soviet Union and their economic backwardness. However, as things turned out, nationalist dissatisfaction with the Soviet Union was strongest in the more “European” and prosperous part – in Russia and the Baltic areas as well as Ukraine and Georgia. Ordinary people here felt alienated from the Central Asians and from each other and concluded also that they were paying too high an economic price to keep the more backward areas within the Soviet Union.