(First posted 5/30/2016. I’ve been rerunning posts from exactly six years earlier, and that’s when this one ran. When I came across the title in the archives, I had a momentary hesitation given the current state of affairs with Russia and Ukraine. But that has nothing to do with this, an exceptional look at life and car ownership in the former USSR in the seventies and eighties.
Unfortunately, the commenting to this post was marred by the inevitable need to judge the political system of the USSR at that time. That was unfortunate, as that misses the whole point. I found this exceptionally well-written article to be a unique opportunity to learn about life for the average person there during that time.
For those of you who missed this the first time around, I highly recommend it. Part 2 will run tomorrow. PN)
For many folks in the West life behind the Iron Curtain had always been a source of endless jokes or wild guesses. Now, roughly 30 years after the old order collapsed, the tales of funny (as in both strange and hilarious) Ruskies are still aplenty. During this little nostalgic trip, we will talk about Soviet cars, car owners and ownership, will hopefully clear some of the prejudices, and revive a few old jokes too.
Many things could be said of the USSR, but ultimately, all politics aside, it was no different from other countries you can find on the map. Life was totally normal, the exception being the absence of private businesses, presence of totally free education and medical care, mostly free apartments and rather narrow wealth gap between the ruling class (“the Nomenklatura”) and the regular folks. Starting sometime in the early 60-s the ideological pressure gradually became very light, with even the Party propagandists clearly not believing in what they preached. Jolly cynicism was the name of the game and you could hear plenty of rather harsh jokes about the State and its increasingly senile leadership.
So people, all 286 million of them, lived their daily lives, went to work, had fun, raised children and tried to make ends meet.
Car ownership was a rare luxury and a symbol of prestige though. By 1985 (the last year before all hell broke loose and things started to seriously deteriorate and the social order collapsed) the Soviet populace owned 45 personal vehicles per 1000 people. To compare, the US had 535, Western Europe 350-400 and Japan 230.
Cars were expensive and difficult to obtain. The vehicle sale price was 3-5 average annual incomes of a skilled manufacturing worker or an engineer. One also had to wait up to several years to be allowed to buy one, as allotments for new personal vehicles were distributed through local trade union charters. Everybody supposed to work in the USSR and all workers were unionized.
The only way to bypass the system and wait was either travel to the Far North to work in the fast growing resource economy, or shopping used. This channel was officially regulated through a system of state-run consignment stores, but really they were just an unavoidable middleman between private sellers and buyers.
Getting parts and even basic wearables (bulbs, batteries, tires, pads, fluids and filters) was difficult, everything was “deficit”. Prices were not cheap either. And you were your only mechanic, as the OEM-backed service stations were placed only in major cities, sometimes a thousand kilometers apart, and waiting times to have your car serviced stretched into eternity. And as mentioned before, there were no private chain or small mom-n-pop repair shops.
The last reason for the relative scarcity of the personal car is that not too many really wanted to own one, because the USSR was rather heavily urbanized. The typical city dwelling in the USSR and now Russia is a multi-story apartment block. Typical arrangements back then were 5-9-14 stories, up to 25 or more now. Most things were within a walking distance, the public transit was quite well developed and the general pace of life was leisurely. On top of that, very few had a garage (usually on the city outskirts or in the industrial zone) or secure parking. So the last thing you wanted was having an expensive asset sitting outside, open to the elements and vandalism or petty theft (more on that later).
But imagine you have the means and the funds to become mobile. What could you get back then? The Soviets were not spoiled with much choice. Throughout the late 70-s (the peak of Soviet prosperity) there existed 4 “brands” whose products a private citizen could actually buy.
The largest was the VAZ (Lada for you). Its 2-model range comprised of several heavily revised Fiat 124 spin-offs, and a very modern (for 1977) and capable Niva 4×4. In 1985 the range expanded to add a new FWD Samara, developed with the help from Porsche Engineering. Interestingly, VAZ never boasted about the foreign input.
The Ladas were the indisputable style, prestige and comfort leader in cities, especially its top versions (2106 and 2103). Due to their requirements for higher quality oils, antifreeze instead of water, and less serviceable parts and assemblies, they were viewed with suspicion by the rural and out of big city folk. Parts were expensive and very hard to come by too. Funnily enough, the earliest batches assembled in 1970-1973 using Italian parts had the best reputation. Speaks volumes about the average quality then.
![autowp.ru_azlk_2140__moskvich__7[1]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/autowp.ru_azlk_2140__moskvich__71-600x450.jpg?resize=600%2C450)
The second largest was Moskvich with its two factories, one in Moscow (AZLK) and one in Izhevsk (Izh). Both produced what was virtually the same car from the mid 60’s (M-408/412). While Moscow’s version was updated in 1977 to become 2140, it only came in 2 body styles (a sedan and a station wagon). Meanwhile Izh made a sedan, two trucklets and a 5-door hatchback with some faint hues of Renault-14 about it.
The truck with a tall canopy was often called a “boot heel”. Strong and durable, if narrow, noisy and feeling very antiquated on the road, Moskviches were an easier buy (shorter wait times and cheaper). They were mostly favored by those who had to regularly endure poor roads or haul lots of stuff.
For those in the know, the Izh was much more popular for its higher quality, because of the military origins of its assembly plant and the workforce. Interestingly, the M-412 engine was heavily influenced with the BMW designs of the early 60’s. Due to their durability and low cost, in later years it became popular with the builders of lightweight aircraft.
The less fortunate ones had to go with the ZAZ, or Zaporozhets. It was an air-cooled rear-engined contraption, that filled streets with an unmistakable cacophony of loud racket and air cooler whine. The common joke was that it took only a few minutes of shame, but you’d get there.
Its earliest iteration (immediately above) closely resembled FIAT-600, was commonly known as a “humpback” and widely praised for off-road prowess.
The second generation (previous photo) took styling inspiration from the German NSU-Prinz, but with a bit more favorable proportions. A “jug-eared”, “a loser’s car”, “Zhopo-rozhets” (Assface) – the (nick-)naming nomenclature reflected what little respect that the car had. Were it not for the weeny “power” from the V-4 engines, they would have possessed rather suicidal handling traits. Their model range also included a “handicapped” car, with a bizarre system of levers and pedals to compensate for missing or inoperative limbs.
And finally the queen of the road, the Volga. Nothing shouted louder that you made it than having and driving one. No other domestic car attracted more envy from the fellow citizens.
![GAZ21L_2[1]](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/GAZ21L_21-600x432.jpg?resize=600%2C432)
The appearance of the first one, GAZ-21, was inspired by the 1952 Ford Mainline, but mechanicals could not be more different. Introduced in the middle 50’s, it was theoretically available and affordable to the plebs. My dad, then a junior engineer, nearly bought one, while his colleague did and drove it for 40 years and almost 1 million miles.
The second one, GAZ 24, came out around 1969-70 and looked like an almost attractive concoction of several styling themes. To be able to buy one legally, you had to be either a director of a manufacturing plant, be a distinguished artist or some such, or win a lottery. Another chance to buy a Volga was working abroad for several years at a Soviet diplomatic or trade mission.
A layman with unbearable urge to own a Volga could only satiate the lasting by buying a retired one off a taxi or governmental fleet. For that though, you had to have formidable welding, bodywork and mechanical skills, as well as access to all parts, because those cars would be in a very sad state.
Also, over the years, a handful of Volgas were built as KGB pursuit cars, with truck V8 engines and 3-speed autos.
Other vehicles, like Chaika limousines, UAZ off-roaders and all trucks and minibuses, were unavailable to the general public, so I will not mention them here.
In Part Two we will look at some day-to-day trivia that an average car owner had to deal with in the USSR, like getting gas, parking, servicing, etc.
That’s very interesting!
Here in Canada, we only had the Lada.
I like the Volga, too bad they were not more widely available!
I wish communism hasn’t failed like it did!
How is it now in Russia compared to how it was in the 1960s?
Phil:
“I wish communism hasn’t failed like it did!”
Really? The USSR car consumer had the choice of four crappy cars – the best of which was a prior generation Fiat. Back then Canadians had the choice of dozens of brands, hundreds of models of cars, from multiple countries – immediately available at local dealerships which were ready to service and support with parts.
Knowing that and from the perspective of a car person, you have a generous nostalgia for communism. Again, really?
Well,
First of all, there was never such thing as “communism” in actual existence. It was proclaimed as a final goal, but rather distant one. There were endless jokes, bitter or otherwise, about this. The closest it ever got to was the then Clown in Chief, aka the Grand Corn Planter, Mr. Khrushchev, announced it in late 50’s that communism would have happened in 1980. Yeah, how we laughed…
As for the choice of cars – well, it is not a perfect world. Besides, for many folks here in the West, I presume, given the choice between free education, healthcare, apartment, guaranteed minimum income and a good selection of consumer goods, they would not instantly spring for the latter. So….
Homo Calgarian: Would I trade freedom of choice for free education or free medical “care”? Yes, certainly. When it is free you get what you pay for.
And I would also rather have the freedoms of speech, dissent, assembly, publication, mobility over what the USSR offered.
Liberty or free government education and medical care? That is such an easy choice that only a child would opt for the latter.
– constellation –
In an ideal and perfect world – I will agree with you absolutely. Real life is a bit more complicated though. Actually, I’d say that the West now has rather less free speech than what we had back then in the Evil Empire.
Oh, and free education has been pretty good, judging by the number of my ex-compatriots teaching or doing research in many leading universities and R&D centers around the world.
As for the healthcare – well, the average life span in the 70’s and the post-war population growth (with 0 immigration, BTW) indicate that it was not all that bad either.
I am not arguing and not saying it was all sunshine and blooming flowers – just trying to say that life is always rather more complicated than dogma.
I wouldn’t say that one has to make a choice between free education and freedom of speech. In America we have freedom of speech and free education. Even private schools are heavily subsidized by school vouchers, government backed student loans and grants, tax breaks, etc. Most for profit schools generate 80-90% of their income from government sources.
Many non-communist countries offer free or partially government funded health care. The US has Medicare and other government programs. Canada and Europe offer even more.
@constellation- Not quite on the “free education”, especially if you fail to find a better paying job and fall behind in your payments (you cannot declare bankruptcy on student loans).
Other than that, I’d take free healthcare and education in addition to the freedom to drive what I want.
Yeah, but you know, these “free things” have their price. Waiting period for your new apartment counts in years (20? 40?) develepment was halted by centrall planing etc. But yes, in 70’s since telling political jokes didn’t mean death penalty it wasn’t worst place to live. Btw, in Poland we still have “free healthcare” (technically everyone have to paid insurance (listed) in tax) with waiting period sometimes counted in years.
About soviet cars in my country Warszawa (GAZ Pobieda forcefully licensed by Uncle Joe) was produced to 70 something, Ladas were still quite popular during 90 and were known as faster from our own Polski Fiat 125, Volgas 24 were rare, since 70 as taxi served Fiats and used Mercedes diesels in condition similar to ones known from Africa and higher class used Polski Fiat 132 (polish were badges, battery and wipers). I can’t remember any Moskvitch, so I think in Poland they never were popular. Ah, and one thing, since 70’s for dollars Poles could legally buy for USD western cars (I cant remember which makes).
It was since 70’s, 50’s were very dark times for living.
You forgot to mention the “Maluch”. That was one terrifying beast of a car! 🙂
@Acubra: “Maluch” (the small Fiat 126 since big Fiat was 125) was just license build small Italian car, produced till 2000 something which till mid 90 often served as the only family car (4 person with luggage on 400 mile vacation trip wasn’t uncommon) and it’s unrelated with Soviet cars.
Before “Maluch” we have “Syrena”, a car built as side effect of “Warszawa” manufacturing (in which role Syrena won with meat machines), initially hand build on wooden frame, with derma (synthetic plastic leather) top and two stroke engine sourced from fire pump.
Yup. Soviet math and science education was unquestionably better, because it was based on experiment and discussion. American schools have always focused on mindless memorization, despite many attempts to get more experiments.
Another important difference, especially after 1960: American industry started outsourcing to China, and now is almost entirely outsourced. Soviet industry always made a point of employing and training Russians. The goal was maximum use of skills, not maximum bonus for the CEO.
American schools have long abandoned memorization, that’s why foreigners laugh at our general ignorance. Progressive educators like to say they teach kids to do “Critical Thinking” instead, but that’s false because formal logic is never taught except in elective college classes, plus you can’t reason without propositions, or facts.
I tried to understand how China Communist party reconciles the free market and the official socialist/communist ideology. Apparently Marx said there has to be a capital accumulation period prior to the establishment of communism. The party says China is in that stage and expects it to last at least a hundred years or so.
Deng Xiaoping, who started China down this path, was accused by Mao of being a “Capitalist Roader.” Why Mao tolerated him is beyond me; Stalin would’ve arrested & shot people with far less deviant views, or even complete loyalists.
Funny how China, with long-standing grievances against the West (mostly justified IMHO), would adopt a Western ideology like Marxism.
Frankly I would choose freedom and free enterprise over the choices you outline, and in fact would instantly reject those freebies rather than “springing for” them. (Of course none of those things are really free, someone has to pay for them.)
There are people here in the U.S. who risked their lives to escape from behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War era. Let us know if you can manage to convince any of them of how wonderful the old Soviet system was. I’m told they had a saying – “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.” Ah, the Workers’ Paradise.
You’re going to get some negative feedback for your statement, Phil; 25 years on, there’s an effort to malign the communist societies which no longer exist as some sort of scary potentiality and every effort is made to maintain a negative image of that era in history. All across eastern europe, some of communist statehoods’ most interesting architecture is being erased just so no one can look at it one day and wonder about the societies which created such interesting inhabitable sculpture. People are still scared, so unfortunately, an open-minded curiosity about the USSR won’t escape harsh judgment.
But communism didn’t necessarily fail as it didn’t exist in a vacuum. It existed under constant threat and isolation, and no country can thrive in such circumstances.
East Germany, a country of considerable talent and technical skill nearly went bankrupt trying to buy coffee because nearly all countries which produced it were lead by governments essentially installed by the West.
There’s a reason Africa and South America were constantly enduring painful civil wars at the time; most post-colonialist governments tilted toward socialism and we, as Westerners, did our best to ensure they’d never be successful, including arming right-wing militants.
All to ensure that the communist countries remained under constant pressure and deprivation. One can’t ever really know if communism failed, given the reality in which it existed.
I, for one, am very glad about for this post; it provides a glimpse into daily life in the USSR which isn’t defined by the stereotypical portrait of a drab existence. People worked, bred, ate, drove, commuted, worked… in a very organized, efficient and laid-back fashion. No, it wasn’t heaven, but it wasn’t the hell we force ourselves to think it was.
I’d love to resto-mod a Volga sometime.
All so true. Thank you Sir for your kind and wise words!
While I wasn’t living in USSR to personally experience their communist attempt, I was always very attracted by the concept of this system!
But I guess having effectively controlled capitalism, with more trade regulations and VERY progressive taxes (to the level they were in the US back in 1963 and before where someone earning $400,000 a year paid 91%) is a much simpler way to achieve a wealth redistribution that’s necessary to sustain a good economy.
Back in 1963, $400,000 represented $3,112,171.05 in today’s money… So someone earning that annually today, taxed at 91% would still get about $280,095.00 annual income after paying his/her taxes. That’s still more than what I earned in my whole life so far (and I’m 39 now).
I wish our governments would reinstate such progressive income taxes so a smaller part of the tax burden would be carried by the average people and so more money could be invested in health and education as well as important social programs and infrastructures.
Unfortunately, the people who have similar ideas rarely get elected in key positions of our not-so-democratic political systems! (I’m talking about the US and Canada here!).
Yes, concept is very attractive…for first look and without thought. Whole East European communist regime fall, because it was bankrupt. Government control over everything killed innovation and will.
About progressive tax, I read somewhere that in years of highest tax value H. Ford paid something like 100 or 400 dollars, tax evasion (oops, optimization) isn’t nothing new. And remember, that for each 1000 dollars from government you will probably paid 1200 dollars of taxes.
During communist era in Poland not only cars but also home equipment like fridges, TV or radio receivers were expensive and hardly available, also e.g. petrol and food (e.g. milk, meat, chocolate, butter) or even toilet paper were rationed in the second half of 70’s and in 80’s. So no, thanks communism, anymore.
Was that the marginal tax rate or the overall tax rate, it’s a big difference. Either way taxes at that level are a disincentive to work and/or be productive. People today would domicile themselves elsewhere such as corporations do today to avoid it. Back in the ’60’s that wasn’t really possible but with today’s communications capabilities it’d be a non-issue.
You’re right, it was marginal tax rate:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/190499803/Fed-U-S-Federal-Individual-Income-Tax-Rates-History-1862-2013
But still, anything above $50,000 was taxed at 75% and above $100,000 at 89%…
About people and corporations that would leave to avoid paying taxes, that’s why I said we would need more trade regulations too… Corporations would need to be based in the country where they want to do their business. And there would still be a big incentive to do so as the money would be in the hands of working people in that country.
Small business owners would be taxed less, would have more business opportunities (because of a working and middle class with more money to spend), wouldn’t have to bother about healthcare plans either.
And I don’t think our society really needs incentives to make people work more. The incentive right now is that a lot of people can’t pay their bills while working full time or they can’t afford to quit their job if being asked to be too productive…
By now, we should be in the leisure society, doing well and working 15-20 hours a week thanks to the technology that does a lot of work which needed to be done by human labor back in the 1960s and before. Unfortunately, the increased productivity we got from advanced technology didn’t benefit workers that use this technology, it didn’t benefit the workers that were replaced by technology, it benefits those who own it and don’t pay much taxes… So the government has to put more tax burden on the shrinking and impoverished working class or it needs to reduce it’s size and effectiveness at getting the population well educated, healthy and safe…
And productivity wasn’t a problem in the 1950s or the 1960s with the very progressive tax rates, why would it be today?
Unfortunately, our weak governments didn’t restrain enough the most powerful among us and they take all the wealth and barely contribute to our societies anymore.
The most important thing is, would it be possible to do in our current not-so-democratic systems? I don’t think so! Right now, we have a democracy for the Elites and not much political power for the rest of us:
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
Exactly. Look at the number of wealthy Frenchmen (and women) who have renounced their citizenship in recent years due to extremely punitive income taxes at high wealth levels.
This is why people were attracted to off-book and off-shore accounts. Which is where I totally would be if my income was taxed 91%.
Unless you couldn’t…
Perry,
Not so fast! For whatever reason (East Germany can’t buy coffee, constant pressure and deprivation, etc.), it failed. Blaming competing ideologies begs the issue, the fact was it didn’t work very well, as described it this post. The idea of the poor, repressed Soviet Union kind of falls on deaf ears, it just didn’t work and so it failed. Homo, thanks for the interesting article.
You can’t saw one way or another what did and did not work; the question of competing ideologies is irrelevant if one chooses to ignore context. If the US failed the thrive after decades of economic blockade, it’d say little about capitalism and more about the conditions of such an imaginary scenario.
This was fascinating – thank you. You have answered several of the questions I have always had about automobiles in the old USSR.
My pleasure…
+1 on that. Tell us more please!
Absolutely fascinating, I am looking forward to part two! This is like a whole separate dimension and even (or especially?) today there is so little easily available or findable information that I’m glad you are chronicling it here. Obviously many of us grew up knowing what was behind the curtain but not really having any credible inkling of actualities, certainly in regard to car ownership. People adapt to conditions and while conditions may seem unbearable from someone’s perspective that supposedly has it “better”, those affected by said conditions aren’t necessarily any less happy or more unfulfilled in life but instead go on with their lives. People also don’t always realize that there are other factors that can compensate, i.e. most of us in the US shudder at the concept of not having a car, but many of us have zero experience with a truly good and versatile public transport sector, especially in cities. Even the best of those in the US generally pale in comparison to what is available in the rest of the (developed) world and until experienced in person, is simply unfathomable. Anyway, thanks for this!
Very well said, and thank you for your kind words!
But funnily, there is huge wave of interest in the “good old days” currently in Russia. Tons of websites, where people scan and post old photos, exchange info, collect and restore old stuff (not just cars, but toys, radios, all sorts of trivia). What is especially interesting, the topic catches up with the youth, born well after the collapse of the old order.
Actually, the cost of Soviet classics and especially time capsules and “barn finds” is bordering on ridiculous sometimes. Like $10,000+ for an old Lada or Volga ridiculous.
And David Bowie WAS there… And traveled across the whole country to boot.
In Turkey, they also they also produced a Fiat 124 equivalent , called the Murat. They also produced front drive Renaults. The Anadols had the little English Ford Kent engines and a fiberglass body. And yes , I mentioned the strange Fargo pickup trucks in another post. It was good that Turkey was producing their own cars, because many of the small streets in Istanbul were filled with big old American cars from the 40s and 50s, . This was during the 60s and 70s. When I see photos of Istanbul now, all the cars are smaller home grown or European. Those cars in foreign countries like Russia and others are interesting.
I was walking around NYC and came across a sidewalk seller, he had beautiful Dodge manuals (although on pulp paper) with color diagrams, all in Turkish (he said) unfortunately. At the time I was driving a 64 D100.
“Life was totally normal, the exception being the absence of private businesses, presence of totally free education and medical care, mostly free apartments and rather narrow wealth gap between the ruling class (“the Nomenklatura”) and the regular folks.”
No. Just no. The USSR kept millions of people as slaves in labor camps, working them to death for the “crime” of being insufficiently enthused about communism, or just for knowing someone who was tortured into naming their friends or coworkers as enemies of the people. And the Nomenklatura knowingly feathered their nests from the fruits of that system. You may not hand-wave those crimes against humanity, especially on Memorial Day. Go read Gulag Archipelago and then come back and tell us what you think of your breezy moral equivalence in the sentence above.
Everyone should believe in something, I guess. Unless you personally experienced the GULAG, I do not see any point in debating the topic.
However, as the archives get de-classified with time, it becomes apparent, that the whole topic is overblown enormously.
Besides, the information war has always been the part of the Cold War too.
…and here’s exhibit A.
Gulags or otherwise, there were millions in the USSR who lived normal lives. You can’t say that, because of our privatized prison system or because of the people we’ve killed in other countries that many of us in the US don’t live very normal, productive lives ourselves. You might not like what you see as the reality of the Soviet system, but you can’t discount aspects of its existence which don’t jibe with the standard narrative. It’s okay to have your understanding of the world challenged, especially if you want to remain viable as an intellectual being.
The whole GULAG was overblown – first by Khruschev, who performed a coup and had to cover his own behind in the eyes of all party members. Then it was just part of the whole information warfare, that USSR has lost miserably. Party propagandists were pretty shallow and narrow-minded, and lacked the resources and imagination of their western counterparts.
Thisis the most interesting article I’ve ever read on CC. My best friends are Russian emigres who now live in Canada. Their experiences clearly show that Westerners, especially Americans had completely misguided impression about life in post Stalinist USSR. Im sure Sam Hall honestly believes what he writes, and with the best if intentions, but its not true. The USSR had developed into a reasonable place in the 60s to 80s. Quality, free education, decent health care, most people had a decent albeit basic existence. If anything, life was boring but manageable.
As for gulags…… my friends report most people really did not give a hoot what your thoughts, speech of politics were. You really had to be a very high profile agitator or criminal to end up in a gulag.
Well said.. Americans are told that the USA is the best country on earth from almost birth. .That and united by fear.,”Commies” means they are not constantly in a civil war with the establishment, bearing in mind that the US is one of the most armed nations on the plant.!
The best system is a bit of both. Transport ,utilities and medical care run by the state to keep costs to users down.. Caring for fellow man is not being Communist..Its just the right thing to do.
Sam, if you are going to talk about millions of people in prison, to be fair, you had better have a look at what is happening right now in the USA. Today there is a country where millions of people are incarcerated, forced to do labour at slave rates – it’s the USA. Hard to believe I know, but:
– the USA has the highest incarceration rate in the world
– whilst the USA has 4% of the worlds population, you have 22% of the worlds prison population
– there are currently over two million people in prison or jail in the USA.
– Russia currently encarcerates 455 persons per 100,000 of population, the USA’s rate is (2009) 716 per 100,000. Interestingly China’s rate is 118 per 100,000 meaning that this communist country incarcerates people at one seventh the rate of the USA.
– more African Americans are in prison or jail now, many working for less than $1 a day, than there were slaves at the commencement of the civil war
– there are more than twice as many people in prison or jail in the USA than in Russia.
– pay for prisoners working in US jails and prisons range from .12 to .40 cents per hour (note that minimum wage in Haiti on .30 cents per hour)
Then we could talk about murders, rapes, deaths, drug use etc in US prisons – the rates of which are all higher in the US than anywhere else. We could also talk about the death penalty and the fact that the number of persons executed who have been subsequently proven innocent by DNA now exceeds 130.
None of the above is attractive and it is all happening in the USA right now and it’s all such a paradox given what a fantastic country the US is by so many other measures. None of the above justifies the awful Gulag system by any means, but regrettably, when it comes to the justice system and incarceration, the USA is very far from perfection.
Huge +1.
Me too!
I guess that makes +3!
You can put me down as +4. I am no defender of GULAGs but there are major problems with the US incarceration system which, while I personally have no answers to, need to be addressed in a more serious way than they are in current political discussions.
The high incarceration rate may simply show that Americans as a people are more lawless (antinomian) than most other developed nations. It’s not as if our criminal laws are much stricter.
A clue: Americans are taught to admire those who don’t let rules get in the way of progress.
Really cool overview, many thanks! It is different to have something born in the USSR to write about Soviet cars. They’ve always been fascinating to me… I’m Chilean, so Ladas are familiar. But all the rest are so strange (I was lucky to see them all in Cuba years ago, though… and ride on a Chaika!).
They were strange indeed. A funny mix of European and American influence.
Anyone interested in seeing a sixties’ Moskvitch in action, there’s one in ‘The Spy Who Came in From the Cold’.
One of the more interesting aspects of automobiles in the Soviet Union was their lack of windshield wipers when parked (or when driven on sunny days). Anyone unlucky enough to forget to take them off after a drive would definitely find them gone when they came back.
Yes, the default position for the windshield wipers is “removed”. You’d only install them when it started raining or snowing. A small piece of vinyl insulation or a pipe would be slid over the wiper arm tip to prevent scratching the glass surface in case of accidental wiper actuation.
Also in Israel in the 50s-70s.
I visited the USSR in 1976, spending five days each in Leningrad and Moscow. It was a fascinating but dreadful place – the food was monotonous and awful, the shops empty, and there was a uniformed presence everywhere. We were advised to take quantities of ballpoint pens and chewing gum with us, as these were highly prized and could be exchanged, in clandestine deals, for fur hats and the like.
But it was better than East Berlin, which I visited in 1985. The proximity of the west, and the easy availability of western TV etc, meant that people knew what they were missing out on. The back streets of East Berlin, away from the historic centre, looked much the same as they would have done in 1948.
There was a life of sorts to be lived in these societies, but it was a life of shortages, queues, monotony and the ever-present fear of authority. This is not to say that it lacked certainty – I can understand the nostalgia that Osties feel for the stability of the old days, but that was a stability built on the surrender of fundamental freedoms to speak, act and live as you chose.
Russia’s tragedy is that it has never been a free country – today’s autocracy is in a linear progression from Bolshevism and Tsarism. No country has ever moved successfully from autocracy to democracy in a single leap, and when there is no history of self-determination or democracy (as for instance there was in Germany or Poland) that’s an impossible leap to make. The Yeltsin years were tragic for Russia – an opportunity squandered – but almost inevitably so. But communist Russia was an awful place, mean, corrupt and doomed. Certain social aspects of it may provoke nostalgia, but it was fundamentally bad. And Stalin is still (probably) history’s greatest mass murderer.
Anyway, we’re here to talk about cars…
I guess that if some poor sovetico happened to be in certain quarters of New York in the 70’s he would never believe that it was the mighty rich USA, like they showed in the movies. 🙂
Every country/culture has a set of skeletons in their historical closets and it is just the matter of how you see/present them. And the USA / West is no better/freer than any other place. It is just the matter of what kind of leash the ruling classes use to control the populace.
The USA / West definitely is better / freer than some places.
A very good German film on this very topic is Good Bye, Lenin! (2003). The premise is that an old woman goes into a coma during the Soviet era, then wakes up after the fall of communism. In order to protect her from the shock of the new world order, since she rarely ventures outside, her son keeps her in the dark by piping in old Soviet television programs, and even searching out old Soviet-era labels to attach to current canned goods (such as pickles).
Maybe I’ve seen too many propogandist/Western movies, but I thought freedom to travel was VERY limited in the U.S.S.R. until about the time the Berlin wall fell? If true, what would be the point of owning a car?
As far as “nearly free” apartments, again, directly or indirectly ownership of one’s own home was discouraged….if for no other reason than “trading in your home” was neigh on impossible, so of necessity you were stuck for most of your life in the same apartment.
Finally, I’ll never forget what I read as part of a road test in the magazine Car&Driver, about 40 years ago. Something to the effect that a regime that sent rockets into space on a fairly regular basis, couldn’t produce a good/consistent batch of concrete as the buildings and sidewalks often looked a bit “3rd world”.
Before me and my sister were born, each summer vacation (24 work days by law) my parents would drive somewhere far, each trip being at least 2,000 miles long. Those who lacked a car, would hop on a train. That was nothing out of a norm.
The whole Black Sea coast (the only warm sea coast) in summer was one huge crowd of people from all over the country. The place was littered with scout camps for kids. Again, the cost to put your kid their was symbolic, like fraction of a monthly wage.
People are rather less mobile in Russia, but that has always been part of the culture, just like in many parts of Europe, for example.
I have read that PJ O’Rourke’s piece in C&D (I have the mag) – it is wonderfully written, and he made some very sharp observations. And repeated some old lies or jokes. But again, similarly hilarious facts can be said of the USA. Like its single-family dwellings’ construction techniques (most Russians refer to it as “sticks and cardboard shacks”). Or my personal pet peeve, the HVAC units in the US hotels and especially motels – ugly and noisy 1950’s tech, no less, Still widely present.
Ha, yes, the United States is a fantastic and wonderful place to live but it is hardly as advanced in all matters as some people believe along with some truly “backward” thinking amongst some of the “ruling class”…
They could travel anywhere they want, in the East, behind the iron carpet.
Ok, I can skip Homo Calgarian’s posts in the future, and apparently Perry’s as well.
I’m sorry that your annoyance with our system today, or maybe your boredom with the history you’ve known all your life, makes you want to rewrite it and act like the bad things didn’t happen. I’m going to go ahead and assume I wouldn’t get the same dispensation from you if I were to talk about the millions of Germans who lived normal lives during Nazism, or how poor little Adolf could have made the trains run on time if the allies hadn’t declared war. As if the camps and the slave labor, the aggression and mass graves were an aberration, instead of an integral part of the Nazi state. Just like they were an integral part of the Soviet state. If you’re going to hand-wave Stalin, you need to hand-wave Hitler too, because they were the same.
Soviet cars were a reward for that Nomenklatura who did such a job oppressing their fellow citizens. And even at that they were pathetic rattletraps. What a testament to socialism, that a Lada is what it could come up with the winners in its twisted police state. Screw the USSR–and for anyone who wants to retroactively defend it, may you never have a chance to personally experience the depths of your wrongness about systems like that.
Well stated. I hate when these threads get super political, but I don’t see how one can defend communism or even socialism. The road to hell is paved with ‘good intentions’, and the reality is that capitalism works BECAUSE its an imperfect system…just as human beings are inherently flawed. And you can go down a zillion rabbit holes as to whether the USSR was as bad as we were told, etc. Ask yourself this: In all of the history of the world, has anyone ever climbed barbedwire fences, been shot at, or imprisoned while trying to escape the ‘evils’ of free market capitalism?
“Ask yourself this: In all of the history of the world, has anyone ever climbed barbedwire fences, been shot at, or imprisoned while trying to escape the ‘evils’ of free market capitalism?
Seriously? You do remember we had slavery in this country at one point, right?
Completely irrelevant to this discussion. For the past 100+ years (post-slavery), we and a number of other countries have been relatively successful at the capitalism thing. If you’re speaking about modern minimum-wage slavery…let’s be sure to tie that in to failing social cultures that neither celebrate education nor hard work.
Two of my great-uncles ‘disappeared’ during Uncle Joe’s reign of terror in the 1930’s – due to the pogroms and purposeful famine, my parents’ families came to the US when my parents were very young. I’m very glad they had the verve to finish that mission.
One of my uncles would come visit from “the old country” every 5 years from 1953 until his last visit in 1983. He loved the freedom we enjoyed, was absolutely amazed at the amount of choices we had, whether food, appliances, clothes…any and everything. Especially impressive were the supermarkets. But as he aged he also enjoyed his visits less – why did cars have to be so big? Why did people have to throw food away? Is there too much choice? Why do we take our freedom for granted?
At the end he seemed sad and angry at the lost opportunities both for him and our family….
In Chile after 1973, you could enjoy all the free-market capitalism you wanted, thanks to General Pinochet-and if you didn’t like it, you could always take a nice cruise on the Esmeralda…
Whoa, where did this come from? Typical straw- man argument. The USSR was not just Stalin. And totalitarian regimes are not all the same. To equate the Soviet Union to be on-par with Nazi Germany is stunningly ignorant. Then to refuse to read others posts because they contadict ancient simplistic propeganda beliefs suggests this ignorance will continue.
I, uh, “learned” a lot of his simpleton crap in American public schools during the 80s, so I wouldn’t hold it entirely against him. But point well made.
I did as well. I am embarrased to admit I was a rabid ignorant anti-socialist who spouted pro-American slogans without question. It took a long time to develop a more nuanced understanding of the world and see that propeganda was -and is- used by all nations to manipulate their citizens, including the beloved USA. It takes a long time to develop a more balanced view of the world.
Anyway, back to the cars…… 😉
Exactly. Some people seriously need to grow out of the whole WWII Nazi thing. Yes, life under Stalin wasn’t fun. But to project those realities on Russia in the 1970s is nothing but ignorant bigotry. I heard the same kind of bigotry when I lived in Russia in the 1970s, when people judged the modern USA by what they heard about the days of slavery and lynching. I’d rather read about cars.
Good overview of Soviet vehicles. For those that don’t know, there is a meaning to the model numbers of vehicles. There was an official numbering scheme that was used across all manufacturers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_model_numbering_system_in_the_Soviet_Union_and_Russia
Thanks for the firsthand been there done that description of the men and machines of Russia.
Russian people were our allies in WW2. So a thanks to all who served as well.
Those Lada “Fiat 124-spin offs” were very popular in the Netherlands in the seventies and eighties. They were all over the place, for many years in a row.
The Niva 4×4 was also quite common. As we all know there’s no such thing anymore as an utterly basic yet very capable offroader. This little thing fears nothing.
If there’s sufficient interest, I’ll try to eventually tap into the Niva history a bit more. I personally think of it – despite its numerous well-known weaknesses – one truly world-class vehicle that Russian civil auto industry produced.
Thanks for this interesting post. Having been acquainted with Ladas during my teen years I kind of miss seeing them, and like to see how other soviet companies filled the need.
It would be interesting to know more about how the design and production teams went about doing their jobs, as we have seen quite a lot on CC about how the North American and Western European work was done.
I work with several people who emigrated from former communist countries. Judging from their performance, particularly in practical technical matters and problem solving, their education was excellent. When all our “British Trades System” people retired it was the Eastern Europeans who largely stepped into their roles.
Interesting article I enjoyed reading.
The political comments, not so much.
Unlike you, I enjoy the political comments just as much!!
Lucky for you the internet is full of places to have such pissing matches. It’s too bad some people felt the need to bring it here.
Whether you like it or not, politics play a very important role in our lives.
If it wasn’t of bad political decisions from the last two decades where I live in Quebec, my life would have been much better in the last few years. That situation is related to a car accident and our public auto insurance that worked great until it has been mandated by bad governments to act as if it was profit-driven private insurance.
I won’t get into all the details but if I had been in the exact same situation in 1980 as I was in 2009 with injuries that made it impossible for me to work since, I would certainly have been fairly covered. Changes dictated by governments who don’t care much for the poor mean that I had to be through an expensive legal battle with attorneys and doctors that I couldn’t afford to pay…
If I was in the United States or any other Canadian province with private insurance, with the same things happening, it would almost certainly have been even worse.
Politics should be discussed in every possible occasion. It’s not a pissing contest, it’s of a much bigger importance and those who don’t feel concerned about that often threaten others by making bad decisions from a minimum of bad information.
No. While politics are indeed important, as you read through these comments you will find that there is a difference between political discussion and pissing matches, the former almost always degrading to the latter. A classic car forum is not the place for either!
Yup, the words “straw man argument” were usually my cue to stop reading on TTAC,
As a westerner, I really don’t think I am qualified to judge the life of the average Soviet citizen. My brother is married to a woman from St. Petersburg, and she has wisely avoided much comment, over the years anytime one of us made a blanket statement to her about Russia borne of our own side’s propaganda. She really was not acquainted with the harshest side of Communism, so it’s unfair to ask about it. In the end, the worst we new relatives could muster, when push came to shove was to have empathy for red tape and long toilet paper lines, as if having easy access to “stuff” matters in the end. Above that, it would have come down to telling her that we knew more about her life than she did, and we all had to admit that we didn’t.
And now for something completely different. That Niva is cute as a button…
It’s bad enough the internet is infested with pro-Putin trolls, but to have to put up with pro-Soviet trolls? The only thing missing is Vladimir Posner!
I’ve always enjoyed CC because it was the anti-TTAC, generally free of politics. Instead we’re treated to an otherwise fascinating read on Soviet-era cars that instead makes excuses for and defends one of the most brutal and oppressive governments in history.
And to post this on Memorial Day in the US…….shame on you!
The article is self-described as a “a little nostalgic trip..about Soviet cars, car owners and ownership”. It’s hardly an apologia about the negative aspects of the USSR and communism, which are of course utterly undeniable. Not every article on life in the USSR has to, right? Or maybe it does, for you?
CC is an international-oriented blog, with contributors all over the globe. This contributor lives in Canada, which is not celebrating Memorial Day. And we have specifically honored Memorial Day with one or more posts. There is life outside of the USA.
If the comments bother you, don’t read them. But this article is utterly inoffensive, and gives a unique insight into the reality of life and car ownership in the USSR. I refuse to be ashamed about it; I’m proud that we can present such rather unique insights of how car ownership was experienced in many different countries. But that’s apparently not what you chose to read into it.
True to form, you put it more succinctly than I thought to.
I had an imaginary reply containing lots of vitriol, jingoism, and a TRUMP/PALIN 2016! plug but did the right thing.
Bravissimo, Paul.
Paul, with respect I disagree. There have been a number of posts on Ladas, Volgas, GaZs etc on this site that were inoffensive because they stuck strictly to the cars, and only referenced history as it directly related to the cars.
This contributor elected to make a statement that the USSR was “just different”, and in so doing hand-waved (I know I’ve used that term a lot now, but it applies) all of Stalin’s brutality. I’ll take his word that he meant to reference the post-Stalin era, but 1) the brutality was less only in comparison, and 2) in making the comparison to the west, he invited a response. The dead can’t speak for themselves anymore, and they deserve more than a cursory “hey each their own”.
I also want to be clear that I’m not waving away the bad things the US has done. I learned all about those in what some want to call my propagandistic public schooling — the USSR’s crimes simply were several orders of magnitude worse, and very much comparable to Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao et al. Those men and their followers made the 20th century the bloodiest in human history, and they deserve to be called on it forever more.
I’ve said my piece and will leave it alone now, but I hope you can see why this post was different than past posts on Soviet-era vehicles.
I, for one, am always interested to hear more about cars that are genuinely foreign to a U.S. perspective, and an important part of that is learning who and how they were used. Even a technical appraisal of Volga or Lada engineering would have to at least touch on the practical realities of the cars’ typical lifespan, and that gets into all manner of interesting social discourse.
(I say, studiously, ignoring most of the comments.)
From a Canadian (worse, a French Canadian!) point of view, I think if there’s a time to talk about politics in the USA, it’s right now!!
And even here, we do talk A LOT about the US politics right now. What might or might not happen in the current presidential race is extremely important, not only for Americans but for us in Canada too and for the whole world, as USA has a lot of power and influence on the whole world. And I hope the progressive side will get big influence on the current US politics or win!
BTW, to stay car related, note what I did to my daily drivers! I look to get more for my american cars too in my next trip to Burlington! 😉
Just two notes – Russia lost 27 million people in the WWII, by the way. And US was an ally, not an enemy.
Second – politics are terrible, I hate the topic. The problem is that people so often forget that outside of the media and Cold war what not there were almost 300 million people most of whom could care less about politics.
They had things to do, like going to work, make families, raise kids, care of the elders… You know, life. And that is all that this post is about.
You’re a very wise man.
Paul – “this article is utterly inoffensive”
It is not. Had it been devoted to the subject of cars then it would be inoffensive. But, “politics aside”, the writer extolled the virtues of free education, medical care, housing with the bonus of a “narrow” wealth gap. That’s politics.
Paul, I know you were a child in Austria. Your former country was occupied by and was under severe threat by the communist USSR – a truly evil empire. I’d hope you’d be put on edge by this nostalgic tripe for communism.
I do not suggest that the pro-communist dig at the west by homo calgarian should have been edited or eliminated. But when such a post appears, those of us who find it wrong, offensive and ill informed should say so.
I would like to read and learn more about the communist USSR auto scene and the original poster is well able to provide such information. But there is probably not much more to write since the USSR car industry seems to have been extremely limited with zero innovations, zero quality and next to zero export potential.
The cars we love are the product of competitive free market capitalism. I’ll feel free to defend it when the virtues of communism are inserted in a car blog post.
– constellation –
Congratulations on zeroing in on 38 words out of an entirely unrelated article.
The cars we love are the product of competitive free market capitalism. I’ll feel free to defend it when the virtues of communism are inserted in a car blog post.
Interesting concept but very different to reality, US auto makers showered cash and incentives all over their government to restrict competition to their automotive products then bleated loudly for bailouts when their operations went belly up once competition arrived.
Paul, I know you were a child in Austria. Your former country was occupied by and was under severe threat by the communist USSR – a truly evil empire. I’d hope you’d be put on edge by this nostalgic tripe for communism.
Do you have any clue how patronizing and condescending this is? You assume/hope that I’d be “put on edge” by this article? Don’t make assumptions about me, please. You’re obviously still fighting the Cold War, which by the way ended quite some time ago.
Here’s what I hope: that you cultivate a bit of perspective and self-awareness, and not get so riled up over someone’s reminiscences of life in a different country and system, one that no longer exists.
I’ll save my being “put on edge” by the things that I consider a threat to my values in the present and future, not those that are long in the past.
Let me add one more thought to your outrage on this being posted on Memorial Day. Although it doesn’t apply to a number of the invasions and wars the US has engaged in, we were often told that our soldiers died in order to protect and save our freedoms. That specifically includes the freedom to hear someone describe their experiences of life in the USSR, doesn’t it? So how better to celebrate Memorial Day than by affirming the freedom of speech. But you’d prefer that this speaker be shut up. Hmmm….
It is sad to see such knee-jerk political reactions to a thoughtful and interesting post, which is simply written from a different perspective. There is plenty of content here on the cars themselves. Our personal experiences color all of our memories, but I’m embarrassed by the presumptuousness of the comments purporting to ‘tell’ the author the reality of a society he actually lived in (where said reality, as in most places on earth, is dominated by the day-to-day concerns of work, family, kids, bills, gossip, and so on rather than political ideology).
It’s particularly sad to see the injunction of Memorial Day as a reason this shouldn’t have been posted, when both the US and Russia shed blood on the same side in WWII. I think a little more respect is warranted.
Nice write up of the vehicles of the Soviet era, my brothers ex wife is from Volgagrad she drove an imported Opel before she left for Australia, her mother in OZ for the wedding pined for the old Communist days, said life was much better, so who are we to argue with them.
The Fiat 125/124cloned Ladas were reasonably common in NZ as swaps for dairy exports years ago they are getting rare now though I do see a very tidy mid 80s sedan around here occasionally, Nivas are still about in small numbers I saw many while I lived in Tasmania though spares and repair were problematic as nobody would work on them, here its not so much of an issue there’s even a local Lada dealer still in operation, looking forward to part two.
The main tool for successful repair of a Soviet car is swearing in Russian. Once you master the basics of this, everything else will follow. The machine will listen.
🙂
“Big land, big tolerances.”
LOL!
One of my vivid memories of my trip to Eastern Europe in the early 90s is on a street in Budapest seeing a man working on a Trabant with practically the entire engine compartment contents strewn on the sidewalk. He did not look happy.
Ah, no one can swear like a Russian. They have some of the most colorful insults imaginable. One of my favorites (which I can’t recall in Russian) is translated as, “Your mother does things to goats for money” (and that’s the sanitized version).
A expat Russian coworker once told me he saw an Aeroflot mechanic using a sledgehammer to fix an engine problem before takeoff.
One thing Russia had in common with NZ during the 50s 60s 70s early 80s was waiting times to get a new car, if a Kiwi wanted a new car he paid his deposit and joined the queue often selling his place in said queue for cash to another buyer once his cars was delivered it was often sold at a tidy profit and he joined the wait list again and just kept driving the dunga he already had, there was only a short waiting list for Ladas and the sold as soon as they left the boat, That and repairing the car at home seem to be common traits and keeping cars well past their usual life span thanks to government regulated shortages of new vehicles.
I remember the Lada Samara in Australia most people swore at the in Strine the local lingo that could have been part of the problem they were notorious for failing to proceed.
The last surviving Lada dealer in NZ still has new cars that would not start to drive off the boat so they were wrecked for parts, yet some people got a good run from Ladas.
Interesting article. Were there any Dacias around in the USSR? Also, you mentioned that Ladas made with Italian parts were a bit better than the ones with parts produced in the USSR. The reason might have been that, as happened with Dacia in Romania in the 1980’s, cost-cutting came into play, and that wasn’t always something thoroughly planned.
Never saw a Dacia in central Russia. I think owning a Romanian car in the USSR would be way too much hassle because of the lack of parts.Moldova might have been a bit different, though.
Quality and materials, as well as the workmanship, for sure were the cause.
I’m especially enjoying the “You can’t post this/hold an opinion I disagree with/expect me to come up with a cogent argument -because it’s memorial day” stuff.
Exactly…
Good article.
I am a big fan of the 70-85 Gaz-24 Volga. It has those blocky 1960’s American Big 3 looks to it. I think the 70-77 version looked the best. I know they made a 4×4 version of the Gaz-24.
I am not the biggest fan of the looks of the Volga M21 and think the car it replaced (the M20 Pobeda) was a much better looking car. The Pobeda had a late 1930’s – early 1940’s American car vibe.
Thank you for the article and for weathering the embarrassingly jingoistic comments with grace.
Horosho! I love the first picture-back in those days,”CCCP” seemed like it would be the modern equivalent of “SPQR.” I was always fascinated by the USSR when I was a kid; it seemed like a whole other world and the fact that it was so hard to find out anything about the place (aside from “official” information,) added to its appeal. Thanks for a look at the “car culture” of another country and another system-as Yogi Berra would have said, it’s similar in different ways. Now for some mood music by Paul Robeson (who sadly got a better deal over there than he did over here.) https://youtu.be/LtU3vUOa2sw
One man’s Moskvitch is a tragedy, a million Moskvitches is a statistic.
One man’s Moskvitch is a parts car, a million Moskvitches is a salvage yard.
There were no salvage yards in Soviet Russia. Complete recycle by fellow car owners has always been assured.
Sigh. I read this and thought it was a neat article about cars I’m not very familiar with, and I inferred that the author was not making some subversive political statement. Jeez.
Why is it that just about every other conversation these days is about two comments from becoming a political conversation? Have we collectively run out of other stuff to talk about?
The negative political comments are unfortunate. I completely enjoyed the article, it’s fascinating.
Looking forward to more, sir!
This was a great article – thanks! Looking forward to Part 2.
Good piece. Looking forward to more.
Regarding the ZAZ, it seems almost laughable to consider a car that had multiple models for people with missing limbs or disabilities, but in today’s world and some of the ludicrous ideas I’ve heard, it almost seems like a possibility.
I’m not going to join in the political smorgasboard of the comments (Cars is pretty much the only hobby I try and enjoy without it getting politicized, and even then it’s hard somedays), but I do have to say that it always amazes me what passed for consumer choice in countries like the USSR. There little historical curiosities that are a reminder of a time and a place that I’m too young to look back on. They are a piece of history, forgotten and odd as they are, and it’s history that’s worth looking back on, even if it is history that stirs up strong emotions in people.
Also, correct me if I’m wrong. But, I read somewhere that the people that live in Russia, both back then and now, are just as much fans of the big American car dynamic as we are, it’s just that various factors make them unable to afford such things. Is this love of big cars true for the Russian people?
The necessity of several models for the handicapped ZAZ came from the sad fact that there were light-duty automatic transmissions back then.
Traditional yank tanks were considered on the same plane as sci-fi space ships. Something godly, Totally impossible to imagine as your own.
When the Iron Curtain fell in the late 80’s it was American full-sizers that filled the first glut for prestigious foreign motors. Town Cars, Cadillacs of all shapes and sizes – the bigger the better. To this day clubs of American autos and trucks are bristling with life, and membership is growing.
Aside from the fact that it’s a factory package, what’s odd about having a multiplicity of models for various handicaps? For example, the Oldsmobile “Valiant” was a factory handicapped driver program post WW2. Olds was the cheapest car with automatic transmission, and offered a broad range of adaptive controls for other functions.
Joseph, it is worthwhile to remember that WWII affected a greater proportion of the Russian population than it did here in the US. In fact, there were many, many more losses. Since Western Russia was the front line at that time – more people of that generation ended up with disabilities and handicaps, hence the greater accommodations for them being made, even though the overall choice of cars was lower. Russia is still catching up with the West today in terms of overall disability accommodation, but it was definitely something that was considered carefully and with respect after the physical and societal wounds inflicted by WWII.
I’m well aware of the impacts of what World War 2 brought on the Russian front compared to the U.S. I may not have the most extensive knowledge, but I know that the aftermath of World War 2 was harder for the Soviet Union (Or rather, what would eventually become of it) than it was for us. I mean laughable, not necessarily as a “hah hah” funny, but more funny in the other sense. I was aware that there were models of the ZAZ’s that were all designed with various accommodations for the disabled in mind (thank you Top Gear, for what brief education you gave me), it’s just the whole idea seems a bit odd. Without getting too political or too sociological, I’m well aware of some people who take the idea of a more “equal” society, and take it to often ludicrous extremes. This idea of making one car that has various models for accommodations of various forms of disability, almost seems like an idea brought on by those certain kinds of people, not something that was actually a reality long ago. It’s something that I just consider a bit funny, (Although given that the automatic transmission hadn’t been in widespread use, especially not in the U.S.S.R, I guess it’s one of those things that does deserve a closer inspection in hindsight.)
Thanks Joseph. I see your point. It is interesting that the priorities would be so different between two societies’ approach to vehicle development. A miserably weak V4, questionable weight distribution and handling stability, and an unreasonable top speed and wait time to acquire one? Deemed acceptable. But inaccessibility to wounded veterans? Unacceptable! Interesting reflections on a historical and cultural context that I hope are allowed more conversation on CC.
Great article. It made my evening. Thanks.
Now there’s a name I haven’t seen in a while!
I feel very honored by this. Thank you kindly Steve.
More than welcome. This is a great article.
I remember seeing a few Lada’s back in the 80’s and early 90’s in Calgary. They were mostly the sedans and a few niva’s. There was an auto show I went to when the samara came out it looked fairly good and had a vw motor in it. Shortly after they pulled out of Canada and there was one sad dealer that had both Alfa Romero and some new Lada’s that sat on the lot for many years until they rusted away.
As for the commie vs capitalist pig politics I imagine the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I remember one of the older Eastern European painters I used to know saying the difference between them and the west was they knew the propaganda was BS.
Thanks for the article.
Politics aside, one of my favorite anecdotes about the Russian (ne; Soviet) general attitude was during the US-Soviet ‘Mir’ (Earth or World) space station effort. Apparently, at some point, a rather serious problem arose and it was dire enough that everyone’s life was at stake. The Russian astronauts chose not to inform their US counterparts and simply came up with a solution themselves. From having been around a few native Russians, this is pretty emblematic of the Russian mentality throughout history: they simply deal with whatever is thrown their way. Of course, an ample supply of vodka helps.
And real Russians hate Russian vodka, preferring to drink just about anything else..
The Russian mentality traditionally is very good at dealing with crisis situation and sustaining under heavy stress. On the opposite, as part of the national character, Russians are not good at planning and anticipating problems.
OTOH, Russians are awfully good chess players.
Another space race era anecdote I heard is about how in the USA, millions of dollars and years of research went into inventing a pen that would write in zero gravity, while the Russians simply used pencils.
I saw a Russian car at a car show once, I forget the make, but remember seeing very strong reinforcements that went from the firewall to the frame rails.
Never saw anything like that on any “western” car before.
It looked like it was built to take a lot of rough road use.
That was the reason the Moskvich was so popular – it was more of a XJ Cherokee -style integrated full frame that just supporting subframe. Would take terrible abuse.
Say what you want about these cars (and that includes the political comments above), one has to see them in another context, and that is that all of them were and are infinitely repairable by my babushka using a few basic tools. Now try to do this with any computerized modern car when the next dealer is 2000 km away. There is a very good reason why once you get over a certain latitude the number of modern cars and trucks drops sharply and is replaced by Ladas, Volgas, UAZs, KAMAZs and Urals, all fitted with mechanical controls, fueling and braking.
Oh: and lest you think EVERYTHING was primitive/unreliable in the USSR, please have a look at some of the things made by the aviation and or trucking industry. It was a question of priorities, and cars were not at all at the tope of the list. Moreover, none were straight copies of US designs; “influenced” is a better word, and in once case the Soviets took a US design and perfected it (the opposed piston diesel locomotive – utterly unsuccessful in the US when its producer, Fairbanks-Morse tried to sell it to the rail companies).
If further proof of this is needed, one need only look to Russian military equipment. The Kalashnikov AK-47 rifle, while not as accurate as an M-16, doesn’t need nearly the maintenance to fire in any situation, either. To this day, there’s a reason it’s the weapon of choice for third world countries.
Likewise, MIG fighter jets are engineered in a way that they don’t need but a fraction of the support crew that American fighters require. A MIG can land in a field and be re-armed by hand, including the pilot helping to lift up munitions.
The point is, rudimentary engineering and mechanical systems can work perfectly well, given the limited means to keep them going.
“…the earliest batches assembled in 1970-1973 using Italian parts had the best reputation. Speaks volumes about the average quality then.”
Or maybe the Fiat 124 wasn’t that bad to begin with. According to a contemporary Car and Driver review
“…nothing about the Fiat creates the impression of poor assembly or impending disaster. To the contrary, it feels bullet proof-like no amount of abuse would kill it.”
Now i’ll wait for some commenter who never even saw one to tell me how crappy they actually were.
i grew up in them. nothing drove better and nothing spent more time in the repair shop.
Dear Hombre Calgarian, articles like yours and the pictures accompanying it are what makes CC such a great site in the first place. Thank you, and thanks to Paul for having the guts to publish it.
Life beyond the Iron Curtain will always be hard to grasp for those of us who don’t have a first-hand experience of it. And whatever relation you make of your own experience is bound to elicit strong reactions, because the issue remains politically loaded. But this is Curbside Classics and not Fantasyland, so go ahead. Given that CC’s motto is “Every car has a story”, well, I think we readers should be prepared to come every now and then across a story some of us will find hard to stomach. Your depiction of Soviet citizens as mostly ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives rather than as brainwashed bums is definitely one such story, and one without which it is impossible to understand the wave of nostalgia about the “good old days” that exists in basically all the former Eastern bloc today.
Plus, I’m happy to read that the Volga was widely seen as the queen of the road in the USSR. I’ve always liked that car, and your statement reinforces my impressions from the Baltic states in the early 1990s. Sure the borders were now open and people had begun to import cars from the West, and all these third-hand VWs and Opels were well and fine, but seeing an immaculate white Volga cruising in Vilnius’s then-rundown district of Užupis still really made your day. I’m not surprised they fetch such high prices now. And I had no idea some were built with V8s. Are there any of these left somewhere? The mileage must be horrendous but that’s a Saturday night car I’d definitely go for.
I’m looking forward to reading part II! Best regards.
As with most Soviet era engineering, advanced solutions were often devised initially, but when testing showed that they require scarce or hard to implement resource, they were subsequently simplified.The V8 Volga did exist, but only a very few were made and they were not available to the public. All such cars went to the KGB as pursuit vehicles and none survive today.
Same thing happened with the GAZ 21 Volga. It was initially designed with an automatic transmission, but after a few hundred cars were produced, the option was discontinued, since there weren’t enough skilled mechanics in the country to maintain them. When these cars broke down, most owners retrofitted them with manuals.
Thank you Olivier for embodying the spirit of this site. History is difficult. Things like a shared appreciation for cars are what bring us together, and maybe in the most ideal of circumstances, heal some of those historical wounds. I have seen it happen first-hand where (when I lived in Australia) local owners of Volgas would bond with local car enthusiasts, who were fascinated to learn about an unknown car and its social context which they had never been exposed to before. While I will not speak for Paul, I feel like this site is the online equivalent of that sort of connection.
These used to be common in Norway too. We exported fish at a reduced rate to Russia, in turn we got cheaper rates for their cars.
ZAZ were not as common, but even today you can still see the odd Moskwich, Lada Niva and Riva, the Riva in particular still being considered a capable offroader.
After WW2 Norwegians could not buy cars (until 1960) because of the nations need for other needs like food, houses etc. and we could not use our forreign currency to import cars. But, we could exchange fish for Soviet/Eastern European cars. So those Norwegians who wanted could buy an Eastern-Europe car until 1960 when we could buy whatever we want (in the teory) as long as you could afford the taxes (still going strong today).
Some of the Eastern Europe cars was actually good in terms of ruggedness and reliability. Lada Niva as an example.
Calgarian,
As someone who has observed Soviet cars since the 1980s and covered some of the models that I know best on this website, I appreciated this overview of Soviet cars and the economic and social context in which they were owned. I agreed with all of your observations as you wrote them in the article, about both the cars and their context. Regarding the debates in the comments, I have disagreements with both sides that are based on years of studying Russian and the Soviet Union, traveling and working in Russia in the early 1990s, and having numerous Russian friends since then, but they are outside the scope of this forum.
Please feel free to link to some of the articles that I published in years past about Soviet cars and trucks, if they will be useful to your follow-on article. They may help to explain issues that you will not have time to go into in a general overview like this one. A lot of research went into the Zaporozhets article in particular, and I hope that you and anyone else interested in the subject of Soviet cars can benefit from it.
Zaporozhets invalid models: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/russian-veterans-day-special-zaporozhets-zaz-965966968/
GAZ-24 Volga: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/gaz-m24-volga-the-near-immortal-gm-b-body-of-russia/
Lada Niva: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/cc-capsule-lada-niva-for-sale/
GAZ-66: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/cc-global-gaz-66/
MAZ-79092: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/truck-history-maz-79092-rocket-maz/
Robert, these are awesome articles. My intention is not to go this much technical (why reproduce such a great job anyway?). Rather, I see it as a daily life of car owner kind of posts.
Also, as you said, you were there in the 90’s, which was a totally different time culturally. I try to stay within… Let’s say, 1970-1985 frame.
In former Soviet Union, Car drive YOU!
Sorry–I thought this thread could use a little levity. Very little levity.
Thanks for the interesting post, I await part two. I’ve always been curious about how the Soviets dealt with cars. This should not be seen as an opportunity to discuss politics or current events, let’s just talk cars.
In terms of the cars, very well researched and reported. In terms of the politics, everyone has their point of view, writers and commenters alike. That’s what a free society is all about. Have your say, be respectful of others, listen, and seek to understand before wanting to be understood. If I have a particular political bent, I express that on voting day, in private, at the polling station. I don’t feel the need or the right to tell others what to think.
Whether it’s Memorial Day, Independence Day, Remembrance Day, or Canada Day, enjoy, and thanks for this post.
It is not so much ‘researched’ as witnessed and participated first hand.
Speaking of the “narrow gap between the ruling class (“the Nomenklatura”) and the regular folk…” In 1965 Foreign Minister Andre Gromyko bought a 17K Lincoln Executive limousine. He would be whisked along Moscow streets using special lanes reserved for the ruling class. No ZIL for this fussy communist.
This is a bit twisted representation of the reality, as usually courtesy of ever-truthfull free western media.
Politburo members (and Gromyko being one of them) had a Kremlin garage (so called GON) at their full disposal, which, in addition to a usual array of domestic nomenclature barges, had a selection of foreign vehicles. Those BTW included gifts from the foreign governments (like the notorious Brezhnev’s ‘collection’).
The foreign vehicles were bought to be used during visits of the foreign heads of state, UN and other such VIPs. Oftentimes they would be assigned to these delegations in addition to the vehicles that the Embassy of the visiting state had at their disposal (first-hand witness here).
And speaking of Gromyko, even the later post-Soviet accounts noted that he was very self-restrained and conservative in his personal life. Nothing like, say, Brezhnev’s daughter and relatives were.
I won’t wade into politics, but one of the most memorable books I read in the 1980’s was (American) Andrea Lee’s ‘Russian Journal’, an account of her and her husband’s nine months as university students in Moscow and Leningrad in 1978/79.
It’s a wonderfully evocative portrait of life in the Soviet Union at the time, and I suspect some aspects of it are relevant to Russia today. Highly recommended.
What an interesting piece this was, and very enjoyable with it. Lots to contemplate.
It helps that I do like Russian humour, which, although doubtless enhanced by Soviet times, long pre-dates them. For a country with such vast amounts of water, the humour has always been drier than the entire Australian outback, as the best must always be.
I haven’t seen Hombre Calgarian ever comment (or post?) since this, which is a great pity, though entirely understandable. The ill-considered disgorgings of insularity piled high amongst the comments probably dispirited him into silence.
Ah, the curse of ignorance. That, and unwillingness to either alleviate or admit to it has caused more harm to humanity than everything else combined.
As it is said by wise men of yore, “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes.”
(Sir William Connolly famously countered this nostrum by saying that “Yes, do that, because after that, who cares? He’s a mile away and you’ve got his shoes!”, but I digress).
Russian joke. I woman s sink is leaking so she calls for a plummer . ” No next May is no good as I have electrician coming around”. But you could tell the same joke about France and Portugal….
Nah, in the USSR technically there was a service that was operated by the housing authority (best comparo would be to a condo or a HOA in the USA) that could send you a plumber, but neither the visit nor the quality of the repair were not guaranteed. Lotsa jokes on the topic. Folks either dealt with the issues themselves (to a varying degree of success) or had ‘somebody’ to reach out to to have the repairs done for a fee or a gift (often of a liquid variety, hence addiction and destroyed livers were common professional illnesses among the ‘kings of shite and steam’).
First time I’ve seen this fascinating article. Excellent education on the vehicles available to the fraction of Soviet citizens that could conceive of car ownership. It is a pity that this article elicited such vitriol in the comments. I didn’t see any instance where Hombre seemed to be glorifying the USSR. But…we live in trigger-happy times where if you off-hand say that you like public transportation, you risk being labeled a “Socialist” by someone who doesn’t even know what that word means.
Looking forward to reading the rerun of the second installment for the first time!
Pardon the silence, but the writing muse is an elusive beast, besides I had lots of other stuff that grabbed almost all of my time and attention, vehicles included. I may actually gather my powers and come up with an epistule some time…
It’s enlightening to read about the everyday relationship between Russians and automobiles in the past, and to imagine them awaking every day and simply going about business, without the trope of the broken worker relying on vodka to get through a sad and miserable existence. We have gotten a tiny taste of life without the luxury of bursting store shelves as we deal with continued shortages during the ongoing pandemic. Distrust of complicated tech makes a lot of sense in a situation like that. One could imagine that a smelly, noisy, bumpy car that gets you there and accepts field repairs would be appreciated for its inner beauty. Looking forward to more.
That’s a thoroughly excellent comment, and an economical summary, too.
In my own ignorance (in youth and misplaced idealism) I was an ’80’s teen fan of the Soviet Union, yet even I was a bit captured by the sad-n’-grey worker trope that you describe. (I loudly defended the system by saying they’d just got some details wrong, in defence of that worker’s sadness. I WAS youthy).
The trope is such obvious bollocks. A couple of hundred million folk clearly went about a thing called ‘living’, doing things such as – forgive me – dating, marrying, fucking, eating, buying food, going to a workplace, raising kids (relates entirely to the third-named activity, btw), arguing, hating, loving, being heated and cooled, getting old, and retiring. (It’s likely there are some other things they did, but I selected the obvious. Well, except for driving, of course). But, fancy this, they did not sit there in their homes being miserable and grey and waiting 40 years for the absolution and freedom the West might one day bring. Who knew?
Please note from what I said above in this comment that I hereby confess to as much ignorant assumption as any older dude in assuming The Great Soviet Misery: to that extent, I really can judge no-one who commented, I guess (though, shh, I do)!
A team of pilot build line workers were sent from Lada to Milan for ” training”. ” Do not touch any thing and we will start in the morning” The team were told by the Fait team. They woke up to find the Russian crew had built a car!.
I can tell dozens of simalar anecdotes involving Canadian and US (Texans) millrights and assembly technicians. And these stories would not favor the US folks…
Until about 5 years ago the was a Samara parked in the back corner of a lot in my town (Ontario) but it has since vanished. I never saw it on the road, but from a distance it did not look rough.
Somehow I missed this back in the day. Thanks for reposting, such a great entry. Interesting see the pecking order of brands in the controlled USSR environment.