Soviet made car

I arrived the air port of Kiev, Ukraine, late at night. I had not made hotel reservation. It meant I had to walk around looking for a hotel to stay at 1:00 am. Well, it makes me always nerves walking down the unfamiliar city where I just arrived especially late at night. But I got accustomed to such thing.
I stopped at red signal on the crossroad. Lamborghini Gallardo and Audi R8, two super cars passed by in front of me competed each other in full speed. Some how I saw many expensive European car like Porsche or Bentley in the night. In the result I got start thinking if here Ukraine was more expensive country than I had expected. Anyway I found a hotel where I can take a rest.

Next day, I got started walking around the city as usual. Then I was a little bit relieved. Super cars were only for rich people. And at same time, I found another fact. This country has extremely higher rate of Japanese car. Actually many tourists from western Europe were surprise and talking about it. I heard the news before that Japanese secondhand cars flood into Russia. However here in Ukraine, they were not secondhand old car at all. They were latest model. Japanese car sales were widely diminished in the global depression. But it looked still kept good sales in this country. Japanese car makers should fully thank to the customers in Ukraine.

Whenever I visit the new place, I'm looking forward watching the cars on the street. That is my fun. But to tell the truth, what I expected for Ukrainian motor scene was not the Lamborghini or the Toyota but the old Soviet made car. So I closely watched on the street. Yes, I saw a lot of Soviet cars as many as Japanese car.
One of the most popular car must be LADA of the company named AvtoVAZ. The classical type three box sedan is still sold and always it's a big name for the casual usage. I often see the Lada Taxi here in Ukraine. I believe this car perfectly matches to the scenery of this country. I remember I drove Lada several time in Cuba.

Let's talking about another Soviet made car. Whenever I was attracted by the style and ask the name of the car in Ukraine, the answer was always "Moskvich". For this car, the manufacturer had already bankrupt in 2002. So all models are discontinued. My impression getting from conversation with owner is Moskvich has much more core fans than Lada. I felt some enthusiasm in their words. Maybe the starting point in character of the car was exactly same to Lada. It's an inexpensive public transporter. But now, Moskvich has been added more collectors item taste than Lada because it's discontinued. It might be in similar situation to Travant of ex- East Germany. Let's say a well conditioned Travant is pulled in the parking of Berlin. The old car fan must glance it with nostalgia.

However this is also true, old Soviet cars are gradually fading out from city scene of Ukraine. It's regrettable. But days are passing.

The car which was left to rot on the roadside was old "POBEDA" of the 1950's. The autumn leaves were laying on the old car which was an eyewitness of the history. How many autumn did you got after you lost the lord?