chav nation of hummers

Russians have long been obsesses with cars. When I lived here before, it seemed everyone needed a BMW or Mercedes. I can remember sergei my old boss arranging to have his stolen in Germany for him. My Russian friends could never understand why I, and many of my foreign friends preferred to take the metro. I tried to explain it is faster and cheaper, but my friends were never convinced, for them not taking the metro always seemed to be a source of pride, whereas for me, taking cars during the day always seemed like a huge pain. Lately, it seems, the city developed an incredible obsession for really big cars. Not cars, jeeps of SUVs. Several of my acquaintances have gone out and bought one. The last time I had lunch with anatoli, who always has the latest in car fashion, he was driving a Mercedes SUV. I find this odd, especially as these monsters are notoriously difficult to park in a city not designed to support the volume of cars currently on the roads. Parking would be a problem even in a smart car, but in a Mercedes SUV, it is a total nightmare. So why does everyone want one? I decided to ask people who are more in touch with these matters than i. Anatoli claims jeeps are more safe and more comfortable, since you supposedly have more leg room. Olga claims jeeps are more “kruta.” She is slightly car obsessed and is now in the process of getting a new one for herself. she was torn between the cute little mazda 3 and an SUV. The mazda was cuter (and comes in red, every dyevs favourite colour) but she insists that the SUV is better. She claims people feel more powerful in a jeep. Because they are high up, the drivers can look down (literally, physically) on all the other regular cars and feel more important. The mititsia (GAI) will not challenge you in the same way, they will show more respect. Other drivers will be afraid of you and always give you the right of way. And if you are in a crash, your car will not be as damaged as some little moscovitch. Or at least that is how olga explained things to me. Of course, it is also a money thing. Russian like cars that look like they were very expensive (even if they were stolen from some poor german) and SUVs are certainly that. They also like the ones that come with the dark windows so you cant see the person inside, hence the appearance of Hummers. Oleg claims jeeps are better in an accident, the other person will die before you do, he argues. But then Marina claims that Russia is simply a chav nation and Russians just want to buy the most expensive car they can find so they can show it off to everyone. They prefer to have a Mercedes SUV and to live in a small soviet flat with their mother than to save money to buy a flat of their own or make remont. But this phenomenon seems to have attacked the whole region. Caitlin went to Yerevan the other weekend, and came back reporting that there were few cars on the roads, but a disproportionate number of them were Hummers. How odd.