Rallying Behind the Iron Curtain: Told by Markko Märtin 

Thank you David & Dirtfish for sharing this! That car behind there was my father's, it was in extremely bad condition before brought back to life. Forever grateful to Markko and everyone involved restoring it.. 🙏

I see Markko, I click

Thank you from this short documentary. Damn I would love to have that or clone of the Raissar and Talvars car. My grandmom had a Lada 1600 here in Finland and it was a blast to drive at country roads especially during winter when I was about 12 and beyond for some years. Loved the simplicity of it and rwd ofcourse. The car had a weird smell in it. Kind of same you get when you first step into trabant, if anyone has ever driven one. I felt ashamed to sit in that car in public in the backseat cause my dad had a Chevy and and my grandfather a V6 passat in the early years of 1990. in Finland Lada's had well let's say not good reputation even though it was a solid car! But driving it was a blast ans she let me drove it freely untended. The freedom it gave to a young boy going sideways. Now I wish she had kept it and sold to me. Lada's were back in the day one of the most sold cars in Finland eventhough we were not part of soviet union, Finland was kind of balancing in between. But must have been tough for Estonian and other eastern block countries to race cars cause if you crashed one, you might wait for 10 years to get a new one.. Btw for some reason when ussr was still alive my dad travelled to murmansk and brought me 2 bottles of Pepsi which was allowed there but not Coca-Cola and I still have those pepsi bottles from 80's unopened in just same livery as the one on video. Phew- long speech 😅😅

This movie is superb! Went to see it in a cinema and having seen different racing documentaries, this is up there. Extremely informative, beautifully shot, great (and unbelievable) stories etc etc.

Have the Lada 2107 with a VFTS body kit, roll cage, turbo engine. Even now it's competitive on a local time attack events in Ukraine.

Душевные воспоминания! (переживания). Спасибо! ❤

Try to find old russian film "Racers" feat. Leonov. IDK if it possible to get with subtitles, but there is a good picture of those times and how rally was here, in iron curtain.

Amazing, as a Aussie born Pole i was fortunate enough to visit cold war Poland in the 80s, the cars: The Polonez, the 125, 126 made by fso carried the same fame of many a child living in the country at the time. I can relate to so so much of this brief clip even though i never lived there.

Oh my!!! I once owned a real VFTS!!! And as i am Lithuanian, from Vilnius, the VFTS was actually designes in my home town not far away from where i used to live and work! Bloody greatness!

❤❤❤ This movie gives me chills and one more reason to be proud to be Estonian! Please watch the whole movie if you can!

In Hungary they still race vfts

Narrator Henry Catchpole? GREAT vid! So informative. I was supposed to go for a workrelated meeting. I cancelled to watch the rest of this reel!

You should research rallies in Bulgaria from those times. Iliya Tchubrikov is a rally legend.

My father was driving succesfull rallye in GDR , my mother did. And most friends and aqaintancies were NOT lined party members, Stasi agents but often small business owners with privileged abilities due their diligence. nothing is black and white.

It's a shame when human life is of rallying is dictated by suppressor 😓 positive note on that keep on doing these films so we learn and maybe someday we all can have liberty to do rally if we solely want❤️‍🔥 never give up dreams💪🤟❤️

I was also born in ex-communist country, rallying and moto-racing was reserved for the sons of so-called "red bourgeoisie", high party officials, army generals and large factory directors. Was it different at Soviet Baltic states?

The reason why you wouldn't be allowed to just buy a car in Soviet and satellite states was not just that they were giving more freedom of movement, but because they were seen as burgeoisie thing and there were bigger problems than making cars . Transportation was supposed to be done by public transport and motorcycles (cause they were cheaper), and passenger cars were supposed to be only used by taxi drivers, post offices, administration that had to move documents and motorcycle would be unsuitable. This changed when communists realised that full employment policy coupled with free services and housing removed the incetive to work well, so cars were introduced as a reward for people who had good professional record. You've got to realise that Eastern Europe was industrially far less developed than the West by the beginning of the XXth century, and of all places most ruined by WWII. So once they decided to make cars for all people by late 60s, early 70s, there was a huge lag and disproportion between the demand and production capacity, hence the long waiting lists.

Большое спасибо за отличный фильм! Очень интересно было узнать больше о Вэлло Ыынпуу. Лишь однажды читал о нём в книге «Основы мастерства», но это было уже в 2000-х. А с детства - из конца 80-х - ничего о нём не знал, хотя старался читать о ралли всё, что мог найти. 🇺🇦

I ❤ ladas they have a special character

'Maybe it's easier to control the people' when they haven't all got cars - very reminiscent of what's going on in modern society, the transparent efforts to put us in unaffordable electric garbage.

Thank you David Evans for this piece

It is wonderfull that such films are created, but it should be specified, that this reguards Estonian stories only, not eastern block in general. Behind the Iron Courtain, regarding LADA there was VILNUS (post WWII capital of Lituania SSR, pre war Polands fourth most important city behind Warszawa, Kraków and Lwów - last one is today in Ukraine), where they produced sort of B-group LADA VFTS (Vilniusskaja Fabrika Transportnych Sredstv) rally cars. So when talking LADA Rally cars of pre 1989 You must start with VFTS. When talking Raly from comunism countries again, you must start elsewere. Most succesfull team was Czechoslovak SKODA MOTORSPORT with their Skoda 130RS and 200RS (group B), bth based on Skoda 110R model - called Porsche of the East. Then there were great drivers in Hungary (ussually using Renault cars), East Germany in IFA works team (Wartburg), and lets not forget FSO with their B-group Polonez 2000Turbo. In the end one driver must be mentioned as the best Rally driver from East Block, a 3 time ERC Champion from before when WRC was established, so actually one might say a 3x World Champion - SOBIESLAW ZASADA from Poland, who was a works driver to 4 different manufactures from West! He drove for Steyr Puch, Porsche, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

I am not surprised that skoda did well in that time.

Great content!

GJ

Borbet type A

Damn, fairy tales about the USSR again 🤦‍♂

Да уж а у нас в рашке все это убили

In fact, the video greatly distorts the real facts! Starting with the fact that, after the end of World War II, the US Government initiated the Wall and the division of Germany. The US government was afraid of the strong influence of communist ideology in Western Europe, the emergence of powerful trade union organizations and Left forces. After the surrender of Japan in 1945, in order to intimidate the Communists of the Soviet Union, the American government orders nuclear bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki! This was the beginning of the Cold War! Sanctions were also imposed on the Soviet Union by all countries under the influence of the United States. During World War II, the Soviet Union suffered the greatest human losses, many cities in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were destroyed. It is important to clarify that any loss of life also means the loss of a huge number of specialized workers, scientists, doctors and many important professions that also move the technological process. The Soviet Union itself restored its cities and built new industries from scratch. While the United States suffered only casualties, not a single city and not a single plant or production in the United States was damaged during the Second World War. Using the example of American cars of the 40s, they were superior to any other European or Asian ones. European cars were based on pre-military technologies. The United States provided enormous financial assistance to inject economies into countries under its influence. European and Japanese automakers were free to buy the most modern machine tools from the USA and receive the most modern base for future car models. The Soviet Union worked with what it had before the war, also receiving part of Germany's pre-war technology. After the war, tractors, airplanes, trucks, various construction vehicles, and of course tanks and weapons were built first, since there was a threat of a nuclear strike from the United States. Normal highways in the union began to appear only towards the end of the 60s. With great difficulty, we managed to reach an agreement with Fiat on the construction of a Lada production plant in the city of Tolyatti (Stavropol). Lada became the most popular car in the USSR. At the same time, there was fear of a nuclear strike from the United States, so it is logical that the main industries were aimed at building weapons, and not at creating passenger cars. Sorry for such a long introduction. Motorsport and motorcycle sports developed rather slowly. Most of the Teams were formed at automobile enterprises, taxi companies, car repair enterprises, and automobile factories. The most important thing is that any person could become a racing driver, all expenses were covered by the company where he worked, there was no need to buy a car, wheels or engine, the competitions of the company were sponsored. The training was also free! If a person had talent, then motorsport became his main calling. At the same time, in the rest of the world, to become a racing driver you need not only talent but also great financial resources to simply enter the world of motorsport. Read the biography of Ayrton Senna - can an ordinary person with only talent become Senna, without money? And in the USSR there was Gennady Moiseev, an ordinary person from a village family who simply enrolled in a motorcycle section and subsequently became the world champion in motocross!

just a little bit of british propaganda. nothing new

Sobiesław Zasada - Polish rally driver who persuaded the Porsche family to take part in rallies. They thought that Porsche was only for asphalt and if he wanted to compete, please, he had two Porsche 911s and let him show what he could do. That's why the first Porsches taking part in rallies started with Polish communist license plates. Recently, there was a large project on YT where his rally car was found and restored to factory new condition and there were over 100 episodes - the title "Polskie Porsche" ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Rg0WgER9RXU.html and same porsche 911 50 years ago ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hSVatxjptgg.html and Sobiesław Zasada in this Porsche 911 tells about pact with Porsche family. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SerFdbBAyAk.html

Смешные рассуждения о Советском Союзе. Хорошо, что сейчас в Европе на всех машинах gps для экстренного вызова и никто ни за кем не следит, хахаха.

Here in Hungary, Lada rally cars still have a huge history and fanbase. We still have thousands of Ladas on the streets, and there are a lot of hobbyists and professional teams/builders/manufacturers who still keep building incredibly great and powerful Lada rallycars. (220-230 HP from the original block) Rallyfans here always go crazy when Ladas are coming at any race/championship. But today building high quality Lada rally cars are extremly expensive. A good build is around 30-50.000 Euro.

Friends, connections, networking. Everything that make sports worth the risk.

If anybody reads this , go watch the movie! It's such an extraordinary story, and it's presented with so much love and passion. The crew did an amazing job, this is trully one of the best motorsports documentaries.

2:08 Great shot of Austria's Rudi Stohl in a VAZ 2105 on the 1984 Safari Rally, when he retired. He returned the following year and finished the event. A Safari regular thereafter with in various Audi models.

Good to see you Markko.

If you want see this beautiful rally cars come to Hungary. We have a lot of them.

Excellent David, thanks for sharing this, thank god those days are gone for everyone

Amazing story, I’m looking forward to watching the movie. As a pole I am surely biased, but I feel that if we are talking about rallying behind iron curtain without mentioning Sobiesław Zasada is wrong. I guess the title is misleading. I would love to see a good film with his story in English, so that it could be shared to a wider audience.

The Lada makes for a tough little rally car. RWD, chuck a tuned Fiat twin cam into one, and go out and have fun.

1:48 that's a VAZ 2105 btw, the one shown at 2:10 is a 2101

There are a lot of VFTS in Hungary.

Lada Lux model rally car 👍😎

Loved this

Lada 👍👏👏

is it rally documentary ? looks like propaganda

What nonsense are they talking about. The first starts back in 1960 s in Monte Carlo, Finland. On a regular basis, the USSR put up competitions world. The racers were supported by Autoexport and it bought all of them and promoted production cars. There were thousands of riders all over the country. The famous cars auto union raced in the USSR. The usual propaganda in their words. Remember the Afro-Americans Usa who were forbidden to study at the university and ride in the front seat of buses, women who were forbidden to participate in marophones, and there are many other examples.Why don't they remember these stories when they talk about some kind of race in the USA, Europe.