Cars (over)loaded with watermelons are a common sight in Tbilisi during the Summer months.
Cars
Weekly Photo Challenge: Resilient
This week’s challenge is Resilient
Here in Georgia we see a lot of Soviet cars from the seventies and eighties still in daily use. They maybe a bit rough around the edges but they have lasted longer than a lot of western kit, which was twice the price at the time.
Izh Kombi
This Izh Kombi (ИЖ-2125 Комби) has some dents and rust but it is still going, it is resilient. When the Kombi first appeared in 1972, its five door hatchback design was unusual, the style was only preceded by the Renault 16 and Austin Maxi, now 5 door hatchbacks are commonplace.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Rare
Zil-115
In Soviet times the Russian dignitaries would be driven in ZiL (“Zavod imeni Likhachova”) limousines. A few heads of state from some Arab and African countries also used them for official transport. They are a rare sight today, this one I found to my surprise in Muhriani a suburb of Tbilisi in Georgia.
Weekly Photo Challenge : Spare
For me spare suggests a spare wheel.
spare
Here we see a spare wheel on the roof rack of a GAZ Volga 24.
…and here we have a spare wheel under the bonnet of my Corgi Renault 16TS.
ZIL – Soviet Cadillac…
ZIL
Think of Soviet cars and you usually think of Ladas, not impressive monsters like this Zil. The ZIL 114 was exclusively for members of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the top leaders.
Beasts of Burden
Older British cars that have survived may be cared for and cosseted, older Soviet cars are used as daily beasts of burden with heavy duty roof racks to carry heavy loads.
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- GAZ Volga 24
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- Moskvitch 412
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- Laden Lada
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- Maize
Soviet Cars
Ladas were the butt of many jokes, when they were imported to Britain in the seventies and eighties. Most disappeared from UK roads after the Soviet break up, as Russians and others from the former Soviet Union were intent on buying them up.
What do you call a convertible Lada with twin exhausts?
A wheelbarrow
In the early seventies my father had a Moskvitch 427 for a year, he exchanged it shortly after the rear passenger door came open as we were travelling along…we almost lost my sister…but she clung to the back of the front seat for sufficient time to allow my father to stop. I don’t have a photo of his Moskvitch, which was a tan coloured estate with a vinyl roof.
Rusty but running Moskvitch 427
Moving to Tbilisi, I regularly see Ladas and Volgas and less commonly Izh, Moskvitches, Zils and Zaporozhets.
GAZ Chaika M14
This Chaika was parked near us for months and then one day it disappeared never to return.
ZIL114
GAZ 69
Lada with Armenian plates and Ford badge in grille
Lada Estate
Walking to the metro takes about 15 minutes and I see at least half a dozen Ladas. The other common Soviet car here is the Volga, these I only knew of from books in England but here they are plentiful.
GAZ Volga 24
GAZ Volga 21
I remember in the Observer’s Book Of Automobiles I had as a child the last car was a Ukranian built Zaporozhets 968M, which closely resembled an NSU Prinz. I had never seen one until I arrived in Georgia, it is not common here but there are a few still about.
Zaporozhets
The only Soviet cars I actually own are in 1:43 scale.
Models of cars made in USSR
Zaporozhets zapped
I often pass this abandoned Zaporozhets…possibly once the pride and joy of its owner but now abandoned as the owner has moved onto a BMW…
Zaporozhets
I saw this Zaporozhets near Tbilisi Central Station, sightings are becoming increasingly rare of this small Ukranian made car which resembles a little an NSU Prinz. Ladas and Volgas are still plentiful here.
jim holroyd 365 