Letters to the Editor

To the Editors:

I love your magazine and especially enjoyed the recent articles on female V.O.V. aviators and feline guardians of the Hermitage. I wonder, have you ever done any articles on motorcycling in Russia? Eventually, I’d like to get a Ural with sidecar so I can take my husband for a ride ... While in Russia, I see many sidecar rigs on village roads. And once even saw an “outlaw” biker gang in St. Petersburg, riding Ural choppers with home-machined custom accessories.

My dad, a convoy captain during WWII, delivered many Lend Lease Harleys and Indians to the northern Soviet ports. Recently I came across a factory storeroom in Ivanovo housing about a dozen vintage American war bikes. This is, of course, a biker’s ultimate fantasy come true! In the same storeroom are even more late 30’s-early 40’s BMW cycles captured from the German army. Looking through the Russian Life archives, I find nothing about motorcycling. May I suggest, perhaps you’d be interested in researching this topic?