Yes, I appreciate that “Sports Lada” is perhaps an oxymoron, but apparently the canary coloured Kalina driven by the Russian prime minister as he broke in the latest addition to the country’s highway infrastructure is indeed sold as a sporty model. Started nearly fifty years ago, the stretch of road that now links the far eastern city of Khabarovsk to Chita in Siberia some 2000km away (that’s 1250 miles in proper money but no distance at all in Russian terms) makes it possible, in principle at least, to drive from one side of Russia to the other.
Fulfilling his dream of seeing Russia “with his own eyes” Vlad took the patriotic decision to make the journey in a Russian made Lada. Synonymous with urban life in the Eastern Bloc, the notoriously unreliable cars became the objects of ridicule in the West, but if Vlad is to be believed, newer models such as the Kalina are:
“excellent”
“beyond . . . expectations”
“comfortable”
“almost noise-free”
“very convenient”
and
“reliable”
His new found and self-confessed “unexpected” enthusiasm for the Sporty Lada, though, didn’t stop him from taking the passenger seat in a luxury 4×4 of foreign manufacture for some of the journey . . . .
