Car Adventures: Years of Living Dangerously

I have never, as Somerset Maugham might have said, begun a column with more misgivings.


After all, what exactly does the art of driving in Russia's capital say about life in Moscowville?


And who worse than me to write it? Have I not been blackballed from the fraternity of men on the grounds of lack of enthusiasm for the beauty of the motor machine?


In the foreign community of Moscow, dozens of inventive criteria can be devised to categorize residents -- nationality, diplomats, journalists, business people, old-timers, short-timers, English-speaking, Russian-speaking, those with UPDK apartments, those with neurotic landlords, married, with children.


Allow me to contribute another, meaningless division: foreigners who drive and those who do not.


I would never presume to recommend car ownership in Moscow. A person could be charged with attempted manslaughter for such advice. I only know that 3 1/2 years after stepping off the plane at Sheremetyevo-2 airport, I would not still be here if not for my cars.


My first car was a rental, a $100-per-month green Volvo that was somewhere between five and 50 years old. It burned oil and the seats did not adjust which forced me to hunch over when I drove.


The headlights cut out whenever I hit a bump, which was constantly. They blinked on and off like Christmas-tree lights. As a result I was Public Enemy Number One for gaishniki -- and their greatest benefactor. I would love to know how many dozen families I fed on the fines I paid.


My Russian friends dubbed my car the "green crocodile" and wondered aloud why a foreigner would not buy himself a more respectable car.


But I was thrilled; not with the green crocodile's beauty but with its function and the freedom it afforded.Hunched over the dashboard, hands sweating into the leather steering-wheel cover, I began to explore for the first time the city in which I had already lived for six months. Like a mole who learned suddenly to walk above ground, I marveled at how Moscow, on the surface, was continuous, not a collection of discrete pockets of civilization separated by empty space. It was a revelation.


But to no one's surprise the green crocodile soon passed on to reptile heaven. Next, I paid $1,500 for a four-year-old Zhiguli.


To this day I cannot tell the story of my ill-fated Zhiguli without fear of being exposed as ignorant of whether the vehicle was a shestyorka or a semyorka, model six or seven. I am inevitably reduced to describing it as, "You know, the boxy model with four doors."


Alas, my boxy-model Zhiguli with the four doors fell prey to wicked folk who sought to steal her piece by piece. This process went on for several months until the poor vehicle could no longer function.


Currently I have a Moskvich. This time I do know the model number -- 41. It should be 666, for this car is certainly devil spawn. But is there not a certain dubious honor in being able to tell your grandchildren someday that "Grandpa once owned the worst car ever made"?


Granted, the adventure of Russian car ownership is not a quest for the meaning of life, but could Maugham have disputed that in Moscowville it represents life on the Razor's Edge?