Aug 20: From Russia with love - part 1

No problem identifying where this iconic image is from is there? Of course not, it's St. Basil's in Moscow's Red Square. Probably would be one of the most photographed places in the world, if Russia was a bit more open to tourists or made it easier to get there. Anyway, this is a fantastic looking building in pics or in real life and it was just one of the places my wife and I visited on our trip to Russia over the past two weeks.

But hey, isn't this a car talk blog? So what's the deal on the travel bit? Well, the deal is this......being a car guy any trip includes lots of car watching and in Russia there was tons to watch. Not only all the Euro iron that we don't get here, but also the old Soviet era "gems"(?). I'll break this into two blogs. Today let's look at the new reality........

Moscow is a very beautiful city with absolutely no trash on its streets, no coffee cups, no butts, no bits of paper, the cleanest city I've ever seen. You are more likely to see cars like this red Bentley, with a bright red interior, here than an old Moscovitch. Sure there are plenty of the old heaps, but I've never seen so many high end cars in one place ever - Bentley's, Ferrari's, Audi's, Bimmer's, Mercedes, Cadillac's.(one hotel had a line of Rolls-Royce Phantoms sitting outside as courtesy cars). If there is money in the new Russia, it's rolling around Moscow with heavily tinted windows.

Getting married? Then you need an expensive wedding car like this Benz or a stretch Escalade, or Navigator, or Hummer, or a Zimmer Golden Spirit......

Aspire to political greatness? What else says you've arrived than a German make limo like these parked outside the state duma...........

I think this pic covers all three of the high end German brands. What a scoop!

Imagine a country that up to about 20 odd years ago had minimal cars, now imagine a country that has (in the biggest cities at least), thousands and thousands and thousands of cars. What naturally comes next is traffic and in Moscow, I've never ever seen such horrific traffic jams. Example......

It doesn't look so bad in a still pic, but count the lanes of cars, then realize that this is a four lane road. Get the picture? And run it slowly thru your mind, dead slow, because that is how fast the traffic moved. Everyone else was bored, but I was enjoying car spotting. But Moscow is not the only trouble spot, as this shot in St. Petersburg shows.......

Taken in the rain from our bus, this gives you a great view of random driving.

Where does one park? In Moscow, anywhere you can find an opening and don't worry a bit about blocking anyone else.......

What a trip and a car guy's dream. Good to be back and looking forward to sharing some old Soviet era cars with you on Friday.

Until next time.......