Trade revives in former Soviet bloc

International Herald Tribune ^ | December 27, 2007 | Judy Dempsey

[antinomian]

The Skoda, a Czech-made car that was long the butt of unflattering jokes across Eastern Europe, has become a success on the streets of Moscow in its new incarnation - one more sign that trade between Russia and its former satellites is picking up again as consumer spending and economies in the region grow apace.

During communist times, the region's economies were closely linked in the Comecon trade pact, but those ties broke down completely after the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989.

Now a turnabout is under way, to the benefit of companies in Eastern Europe selling not only affordably priced cars but household appliances, food and agricultural products and machinery.

In the other direction, it is a different story.

[antinomian]

When the Soviet Union went down some of its leaders expressed fears that Russia would become a mere source of raw materials for the west. I don't think they ever imagined they would find themselves serving in that role for their former satellites.

[tired1]

i bought a ‘91 Skoda in Poland last year and took it from the east to west. i raced against a Mercedes on the back roads and went head to head with him. when we hit the highways, he blew me away because of pure power.
i don’t know how many cars i’ve owned in my life, but that car handled the best.

[damondonion]

It's highly likely that eastern block car makers suffered from one of the same problems which Saab and Audi (then Auto Verein) encountered around 1968 - 1975 or thereabouts only to a greater extent, i.e. that it became politically and economically impossible to go on making cars with 2-stroke engines. The 2-stroke engines were good for what they were and they always started easily and ran nicely in cold weather, which is a big plus in places like Germany, Poland, or Russia. I had a DKW once as a teenager and if I had to live my life over, would have kept it until I was out of college; it was a better car than anything else I drove in those years.

The first several years worth of Saab's and Audi's cars with 4-stroke engines were just as bad as anything made in the Eastern block; the first 4-stroke engine for the Saab 99 was an engine designed for pumping water out of coal mines...

[gr8eman]

Skoda and Seat were bought by VW. Saab by GM. Drove a small Skoda in the Czech hills and it was the best car to drive in the snow. Volvo the worst.