Azerbaijan – where the Lada’s outnumber the Toyotas:

Last week, I was struck by the enormous number of old Ladas — or Zhigulis, as they were known in Soviet times — on the roads in Azerbaijan.

What is particularly remarkable is the condition of many of them. Some look as though they are almost new, despite the fact that they must be 40 or even 50 years old. There seem to be many thousands of them everywhere. It made me wonder why so many have survived in Azerbaijan when, in Russia today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see anyone driving an old Zhiguli.

There are several reasons.

400,000 kms got good as new.

During the Soviet period, the Zhiguli was essentially the people’s car. The various VAZ models were produced in enormous numbers — around 17.6 million of the different Zhiguli models were eventually built. Azerbaijan received large numbers of them, and after independence they remained important family and working vehicles.

In one of the guesthouses I stayed in, the owner had a Zhiguli that looked like new. He even invited me to sit into it and it really was in mint condition – this despite the fact that it had recorded over 400,000 kilometres. The man told me that Azerbaijanis love these cars and that the great advantage of the Zhiguli is its simplicity. There are very few electronics and relatively little that can go seriously wrong. A competent mechanic can repair one without sophisticated diagnostic equipment, and parts are relatively cheap. Generations of Azerbaijani mechanics have grown up knowing these cars inside out.

Consequently, instead of the normal progression of an old car — becoming uneconomic to repair and eventually being scrapped — the Zhiguli can simply be repaired and kept going. A 40-year-old car is not necessarily a problem if the owner can replace a part cheaply and find somebody who knows how to fix it.

They are also still useful working vehicles, particularly outside Baku. They are used for carrying people, agricultural produce, tools and all sorts of other things. If you have an inexpensive car that is mechanically simple, reliable enough and cheap to repair, there is not much economic incentive to replace it with a modern vehicle.

It's as clean inside,

I did a little research and the statistics are quite extraordinary.

Azerbaijan’s 2026 vehicle statistics recorded approximately almost 400,000 Zhigulis – a VAZ is a type of Zhiguli (or Lada as we knew them).

• 199,000 VAZ 2101/03–06 models

• 126,500 VAZ 2105/07 models

• 14,900 VAZ 2102/2104 models

• 24,500 VAZ 2108/09 models

• 35,300 Nivas

That means there are more than 400,000 VAZ vehicles in those categories alone, without even counting all the other old Soviet marques.

And what is particularly interesting is that the numbers have not collapsed in recent years. The number of VAZ 2101/03–06 cars, for example, was almost exactly the same in 2023 as it had been several years earlier.

Some of the cars I have seen look almost new because there are really two different phenomena. Some are simply old working cars, while others have been maintained, repaired, repainted and refurbished over many years. The basic construction of the Zhiguli makes this relatively straightforward.

There is also an interesting difference between Azerbaijan and Russia.

Russia eventually developed a much larger market for imported Japanese, European and Korean cars. As a result, the Russian car fleet, particularly in the cities, became much more modern. Today, an old Zhiguli in Russia is increasingly associated with poverty, provincial life or nostalgia.

In Azerbaijan, by contrast, the Zhiguli remained much more of an ordinary working car. Modern Mercedes, Toyotas, Hyundai’s and Kia’s are very common, but the old Soviet cars survive alongside them.

Another well-kept model

There is also a cultural element. Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union for 71 years, and the Zhiguli became deeply embedded in everyday life. It was the car that generations of people learned to drive, maintain and repair.

So when you drive around Azerbaijan and see one after another Zhiguli, you are actually looking at a remarkable surviving piece of Soviet social history.

The irony is that the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, and production of the classic Zhiguli range eventually ended, yet Azerbaijan still has hundreds of thousands of them on its roads.

It really is quite extraordinary — and certainly something I have noticed much more there than I would in Russia.