Not sure it's still a breeze now in Russia.

But that it was simpler in East Germany says a lot.

I wouldn't go to Russia today but a friend of mine did, his wife is Russian and her babushka was dying so they went to see her. Wasn't really much of a problem, you just had to go in via China but no problems getting in or out. China was also mostly a formality, they stayed overnight and the hotel staff gave them the details of the unblocked WiFi to use to to bypass the Great Firewall.

The thing with East Germany was that they were concerned about people wanting to get out, not people coming in. So they scanned the vehicle for contraband goods going in and concealed people coming out, but apart from that it was just standard Soviet-bloc bureaucracy. The other thing was that, even though it was a somewhat totalitarian state they played by the rules, as a visitor unless you did something outrageously stupid nothing was going to happen to you. I had a camera on my lap and had been taking photos of the border installations, a border guard saw me holding the camera and said something like "you're not taking photos are you?" - "no, just changing the film" - "well, OK then".