Currently in St. Petersburg and I can't believe the mix of cars here!

"KurtAKX" (kurtakx) 08/17/2014 at 11:19 • Filed to: None

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So, I've been in the St. Petersburg area for about a week now for my job (only two more until I get to go home!)
My daily commute here is akin to starting in Manhattan and ending up in Borat's hometown each morning. That may be a slight exaggeration, as my hotel is only about US $300/night.

I work for one of the Detroit 3, so as you might expect, I watch the cars around the city and on the 1.5-hour long shuttle ride out to the assembly plant with a great deal of interest.

So far, it appears there's no rhyme or reason to what has ended up on the roads over here.
In the city, there's a lot of cars you might ordinarily see in the US, like:
+5-6-7 series BMW
+Mercedes E and S class
+Toyota Prado (what we call Land Cruisers)
+Jaguars
+Volvos
+Land Rovers
+Minis
+Honda Civics and CRVs
+Mazda Tributes
+Nissans, Sentra, Altima and their little SUV, though they all have the Japanese names over here- Qashqai, Teana, and whatever they call the Sentra
+Opel Astra (which US people would call a Saturn)
+There's even a handful of full-blood US vehicles like Mustangs, Camaros, Tahoe/Suburban/Escalade and a couple Chevy conversion vans.
+Contour/Mondeo, Russia got the 2.0 version, which is really nothing special, but I always do a double-take because before this trip, I'd never seen a Ford Contour wagon/estate in the wild.
+
There are a shitload of rebadged cars here. I've seen both the short lived Suzuki Forenza and shorter-lived Suzuki Verona here, wearing the Chevy bowtie, called Lacetti and something else.
I'm shocked at how many varieties of Suzuki/Daewoo/(whatever GM could get on sale) they just slapped a bowtie on and called a "Chevrolet". Really takes what they did with the Aveo/Sonic in the US to a much, much higher level of lazy-shittiness.

Loads of Skodas.

Then there are some other juxtapositions, like this thing, which they call a Chevy Cruze. Strange, because they also have the US-style Chevy Cruze too.

Speaking of rebadged, they built a licensed version of the Dodge Stratus here too. All they did was change the grille and call it a Volga Siber. I saw one, but no time to shoot a pic, so here's a borrowed one:

As you move out from the city center, you start to see more and more rusty, un-inspired shitbox cars, many of which are also licensed versions of Fiats, Hyundais, and the like. It's a lot like traveling through the rust-belt of the US; eerily similar, in fact.

When you get out into the countryside, you get to see loads and loads of Ladas.
Since they're something I don't normally get to see at home, they've become some of my favorites.
Admittedly this picture was taken in town, but while it's rare in the metropolis, it's common in the backwoods. These things have 4x4, low-range, and locking differentials. They're pretty much the world's most baller subcompact. And yes, I've seen a pretty large amount of riced out cars here, foreign and domestic.

This is pretty much my favorite car I've seen so far in Russia.
It was a nice break to sit in the park, drink a Coca-Cola and eat street vendor hot dogs.

Interestingly, it looks like all the middle class people on down, just run snow tires year round, even though it's currently in the mid-70s. I've seen Hakkapeliittas, Firestone Winterforce, and even some homegrown varieties of snow tire.

I'm just gonna leave this one here at the bottom with no comment, because if you can't say something nice, it's better to not say anything at all.
Ok, one comment: Bad, bad Sergio Marchionne! You're a naughty boy!