The day after meeting with Silvio Berlusconi Vladimir Putin received Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan at his Riviera residence in Sochi. The Russian Prime Minister drove to the meeting at the wheel of his own Niva, bought about a month earlier: license number 001, 270 kilometres. The car, in a camouflage paint scheme (including the interior) was delivered from Togliatti to Sochi on the same day.
"If they had delivered it yesterday we could have taken a ride with Silvio," Vladimir Putin sighed. He claimed it was a stock and not a customised car.
As the Izvestia correspondent found out when he sat in the driver's seat, at first glance the Prime Minister's Niva does look like a stock car, at least from inside. It has a mechanical gearbox (Mr Putin's favourite 1956 Volga has an automatic transmission). The gears shift softly, the car starts smoothly, but he had no chance to look under the bonnet (to clear any suspicions that might momentarily have crossed his mind).
A Turkish journalist who took a ride in the car was so impressed that he asked if Nivas would be imported to Turkey.
"It sells pretty well in all countries. It is the best selling car of the whole range of VAZ cars," Vladimir Putin assured him.
Federal issue
By Natalya Antipova