Riga Motormuseum

Some things are just worth taking a bus out into a Soviet built suburb for. One of those things is the Riga Motormuseum. Even though the Soviet era is behind them and the Bad News Bears are themselves extinct, the museum proudly displays several cars owned by some notable General Secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Not only that but they have installed life size replicas of the men in order to give the displays that little bit of extra realism.


Here is Brezhnev looking appropriately shocked as he totals his Mercedes - apparently the Premier liked to drive himself around.

Here is Nikita Khrushchev getting out of his ZIL limo - from a time when the central committee commanded Soviet industry to come up with a luxury car to compete with the west - at least on parade days.

And here is Joe Stalin riding in his favorite Packard - no matter what you say about the man he had good taste in cars.

And Gorky, writer, poet, and eventual minister of culture, getting out of his brand new car - a gift of the Central Committee.