Somebody: Belarus is an amusing case. Of course, anyone who's bothered to pay attention would be, as you say, not surprised that it's a relative winner in the post-Soviet GDP sweepstakes. But, in a farcical way, Lukashenko is analogous on a miniature scale to his idol Stalin, in this regard: it's possible to be both hamfisted and popular at the same time. The last dictator of Europe is probably still one of the more popular heads of state on the continent, for good reason.
Azerbaijan, with it's oil and natural gas, isn't a surprise either. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the country after the waning of the global recession. I suspect it could become a resource driven industrialized country like the Persian Gulf states given enough time, but on the other hand it could fall victim to the Dutch disease.
It's funny how the Western darlings Georgia and Ukraine have fared so poorly. Once again, this is something that the BBC and New York Times invariably miss.