Nope, no KGB defector, sorry. Just an ex-pat living and working in Ukraine, and it caught my attention seeing someone use words like that here. Those car crash videos are the best! I especially like the ones where the bums stagger up to a car stopped at the light in an intersection, flop onto the hood, then try to claim they were hit while crossing the street. Well, those and the tanks driving 50 MPH and going right across the road in front of the cars. There's a lot more in that one than just a bit of "syka blyat" . Oh, and the vodka over here is outstanding!
The capacity of Russians to create a collision where one could not exist makes me wonder what in blazes is going on between their ears. Everyone is Speed Racer (especially in the snow), everyone passes on the left (wrong side of the road), pedestrians who should be aware of their mortality step in front of anything that moves without looking (and drag their children with them unto death). You see drivers looking straight at another vehicle and decide to ram them instead of using the brakes. And don't get me started about those terribly designed intersections that allow three-wide left turns in both directions.
It's like they are another species on another planet. Insane. However, I do like imitating the cursing as closely to the accent as possible. It is my firm belief that genetics gave all the men the exact same voice. Same with women. I call all male and female drivers Boris and Natasha. Those hilarious insurance drunks are all Ivan. Women who get hit crossing the street are all Petra. You can imagine my endless vocal commentary when I watch that stuff.
I think there's millions to be made making this a weekly show for American TV. Maybe the Fox Network. Think of the profits from pay subscriptions to view aftermath carnage! I could certainly land the job of TV host for that. Hell, I have years of experience already. Comrade FElonivitch presents "Adventures in Russian Carsport". Brought to you by Blyat Burgers. Made with bear meat, of course. Free vodka for children under 12.
Do they drive this way in Ukraine, too? How can you be an FE fan there? Do they allow Imperialist vehicles? I mean, wehicles?
It's the same in Ukraine. Half the "Russian" car crash videos are actually Ukrainians. Part of the problem is vodka, but not as often as you might think. They actually enforce the DWI laws very strictly in both countries, and there's no allowance for any alcohol at all in your system if you're driving. If you're the driver in an accident, they 100% will test you for alcohol, and they will lock you up if you've been drinking.
A bigger problem is that they literally don't know how to drive. During former Soviet times, most people, especially in the cities, never owned a car and never learned how to drive. Everybody took the bus or the trolley. In the 80's, the import laws started to loosen up and people started buying anything they could in the West, to take back and resell. When the Soviet Union broke up, it became a free-for-all. Everybody wanted a car, but cars were scarce. There was no used car market because everyone that had a car wanted to keep it. This is when you get like what Heo was saying, about guys going to the West and buying whatever they could. It didn't matter if the car was a beat up piece of crap. If it ran, they could sell it back home, usually at a major profit.
On top of that, nobody had a driver's license; there was no need for the average person to have one. Once the republics became independent, people started wanting to get a license. The easiest way to get one (and still is, by the way) was to just go to the driving school, make a "donation" to the instructor, and he would sign off on the paperwork so you could get a license. So, there's lots of people on the road who literally just don't know how to drive.
It's the same with the traffic in the cities. The cities were never designed to handle large numbers of cars, and drivers treat traffic laws like suggestions. That's how you get stacks of cars in the intersections, all trying to turn left.
Even given all that, I still can't explain what you see on those videos. Every day I'm on the road, it's an adventure
. They do just run into each other, sometimes it's like watching bumper cars, but in real life. It seems like every time I'm on the road, I have at least one "WTF did he just do?" moment.