The fact that Russia has probably one of the best public transit systems in the world, and yet places like Moscow or Leningrad (or whatever it is called nowadays) are jammed with cars is, imho, yet another expression of kulak mentality. They buy and drive the damn things not to move around, for they could that more cheaply and effectively using the metro, but to show off.
Wojtek
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My ex-girlfriend's (from Kazakhstan) definition of "middle class" was "Muscovite who doesn't take the metro." But to be fair it's also true that it is much _easier_ and _cheaper_ to get a car today than it was in the Sovetskaya vremya (Soviet times). And that the metro is probably 30% overcapacity due to massive immigration to Moscow from the provinces, plus the 2 million or so people who commute to Moscow from the oblast every day to work. But even so the traffic jams are so unbelievable I would _never_ rely on a car -- it once took me three hours to drive 15 km. At 9 in the evening.
The real status symbol here is the mobile telephone. And clothes.
===== Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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