Russian Roulette


My truck in the queue at the Belarus/Polish border coming back out of Russia.

Having been heavily involved with haulage to and within the ex-Soviet Union, I felt that now was the time to open a thread dedicated to those operations. Having had my book, “Vodka Cola Cowboy” published, which charts my time living in and operating my own truck from Moscow, between 1990 and 1995, I have received numerous comments from readers who are fascinated by those times.
Many of those readers are truck drivers, who either drove to Russia or are interested in the operations.

I drove to destinations such as Odessa, Yalta, Krasnodar, Volgograd, Leningrad and up to Turku in Finland. There will be other truckers who drove to destinations further East, such as Uzbeckistan and Kazakhstan. It would be interesting to read about their adventures.

So, come on and add to the thread.

Micky T.

Good idea for a new thread, Mick. Happy New Year!

Here’s a couple of links to Russia-orientated threads:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=127155&p=2196151&hilit=russia+beyond#p2196151

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=110000&hilit=russia+beyond

Robert :smiley:

Got your book in the post a few weeks ago but haven’t read it yet. Father in law was a truck driver in the ussr and was still doing runs from Lithuania into Russia up to a few years ago when he stopped driving for medical reasons. I know one time in the 80s he was gone out for a few weeks of runs and never came back when he was due. He showed up back home bout 3 weeks after. His truck had gone on fire and he couldn’t get any phone contact with his office back in Lithuania so hsd to hitch hike back from the far side of Russia to lithuania. Brother in law does a few runs in Moscow direction now and again.

Have to ask the wife to get him to write some stuff down and translate it English

My first trip to Moscow was in 1981 when I was driving for Pro-Motor. In 1990 I was asked to work on a one year contract for Rank Xerox, taking trailers full of office machinery from their European Distribution Centre in Venray Holland. These were destined for Klyazma, 20 kilometres North East of Moscow. Klyazma was Xerox’s Russian distribution centre.
I was subbing to David Croome, who had got the work from Kepstowe Freight.
Myself and Johnny Dicks, the other subbie on this contract were due to load on alternate Thursdays and then run to Russia. However, Xerox sold much more equipment into Russia than they had imagined and we were taken off of Xerox work and put over onto Kepstowe’s groupage service.
Kepstowe had identified that if I ran back to Poland, changed trailers and then returned to Russia, that they could save money that they would have spent on Soviet visas, for other subbies. So that is what happened and when the work expanded to take in destinations miles from Moscow, I began to run to all of these exotic places as well. Such as Kishenyev, Odessa, Leningrad and Volgograd.
Having met my future wife Elena in Moscow, we lived in a flat in the North West of the city, near to Voikovskaya Metro station. Our daughter Margarita was born in Moscow in 1992. Due to this and the fact that I spent most of my time in the ex-Soviet Union I learned Russian.
I was in Moscow throughout the whole of the 1991 coup against Gorbachev, in fact being the only British driver who was there for it. I went to the White House and saw how it was defended against the coup plotters.
There were a whole host of interesting occurrences during my time in Russia, which people may be interested in reading about.
As the amount of work built up more and more British drivers and companies became involved and were going out far into Russia and the other republics.
I ended up spending the last 14 months of my time based permanently in Moscow and acting as a shunter for Kepstowe. I was the local shunter because I only went out to about 1,000 to 1,500 miles from Moscow.

Kepstowe increased their fleet and were running 6 trucks and around 20 subbies. They also sent unaccompanied trailers to Turku, in Finland which were brought down to Russia by Finish and Russian subbies. I also had to make trips up from Moscow to Turku to swap trailers.

Some of the firms that were involved in Russia were ;- Kepstowe, David Croome, Eurotrux, Ralph Davis.

Some of the Kepstowe drivers were Pete Newlyn, Mick Packham, Gordon Jones, John Mantle and Mike Mudie.

Some of the Kepstowe subbies were ;- Alan Johnson, Alan Bremner, Stevie Clark, Nicky and Richard (Fleetwood’s).

If anyone has any stories, memories or photos of Russian work then please feel free to add them to the site.

Irish_neris:
Got your book in the post a few weeks ago but haven’t read it yet. Father in law was a truck driver in the ussr and was still doing runs from Lithuania into Russia up to a few years ago when he stopped driving for medical reasons. I know one time in the 80s he was gone out for a few weeks of runs and never came back when he was due. He showed up back home bout 3 weeks after. His truck had gone on fire and he couldn’t get any phone contact with his office back in Lithuania so hsd to hitch hike back from the far side of Russia to lithuania. Brother in law does a few runs in Moscow direction now and again.

Have to ask the wife to get him to write some stuff down and translate it English

Yes, thanks for that Irish-neris, it will be very interesting.

robert1952:
Good idea for a new thread, Mick. Happy New Year!

Here’s a couple of links to Russia-orientated threads:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=127155&p=2196151&hilit=russia+beyond#p2196151

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=110000&hilit=russia+beyond

Robert :smiley:

Yes. Happy New Year Robert. Thanks for the links, I will have a look at them. I know that there was an old one about Kepstowe, at one time.

Vodka Cola Cowboy:

robert1952:
Good idea for a new thread, Mick. Happy New Year!

Here’s a couple of links to Russia-orientated threads:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=127155&p=2196151&hilit=russia+beyond#p2196151

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=110000&hilit=russia+beyond

Robert :smiley:

Yes. Happy New Year Robert. Thanks for the links, I will have a look at them. I know that there was an old one about Kepstowe, at one time.

Might be this one:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=51951&p=602618&hilit=kepstowe#p602618

or this:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=96860&hilit=kepstowe

Robert

Hi Micke! Here is an good thread about russian and beyond!

Danne

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=50780

Dirty Dan:
Hi Micke! Here is an good thread about russian and beyond!

Danne

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=50780

Yes. Thanks for that Dan. Happy New Year.

robert1952:

Vodka Cola Cowboy:

robert1952:
Good idea for a new thread, Mick. Happy New Year!

Here’s a couple of links to Russia-orientated threads:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=127155&p=2196151&hilit=russia+beyond#p2196151

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=110000&hilit=russia+beyond

Robert :smiley:

Yes. Happy New Year Robert. Thanks for the links, I will have a look at them. I know that there was an old one about Kepstowe, at one time.

Might be this one:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=51951&p=602618&hilit=kepstowe#p602618

or this:

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=96860&hilit=kepstowe

Robert

Thanks Robert. There was actually one that included an article that Daf put in their magazine in 1995.

Remember these lot…?

Cheers, Patrick

pv83:
Remember these lot…?

Cheers, Patrick

Yes Patrick, I remember them very well. I first met Jan de Lely’s in Yugoslavia back between 1978 and 1983, when I drove for Pro-Motors.
And then again in Russia.

Aye, they too went to some remote places…me old man used to work for them, from '91 till '06

Vodka Cola Cowboy:

pv83:
Remember these lot…?

Cheers, Patrick

Yes Patrick, I remember them very well. I first met Jan de Lely’s in Yugoslavia back between 1978 and 1983, when I drove for Pro-Motors.
And then again in Russia.

We had them on the Morocco Run as well - some good lads on there. Robert

Indeed they did Robert! Some of the old blokes are sadly enough not longer among us…

Found some pic’s from, I reckon mid 80’s, departing the ferry at Tanger, will post them on your North Africa thread if you’re interested?

pv83:
Indeed they did Robert! Some of the old blokes are sadly enough not longer among us…

Found some pic’s from, I reckon mid 80’s, departing the ferry at Tanger, will post them on your North Africa thread if you’re interested?

Yes! Good man! Robert

pv83:
Remember these lot…?

Cheers, Patrick

St Basil’s cathedral at the end of Red Square was the favourite place to get your truck photographed, in Moscow.
Obviously, you were not allowed to drive on Red Square itself, so this was the nearest you could get to it. But St Basil’s was another icon of Moscow and Russia that is immediately recognised around the world.

I used to go down to Red Square quite often when I lived in Moscow and it was quite funny when the authorities banned trucks from that part of the city. Drivers would drive down to that location, leap out of their cabs and take a hurried photo. Then leap back into the cab and drive off, before the Militia could catch them.

Seeing that in those days we did not have mobile phones and digital cameras, you did not know, until the old 35mm film was developed whether your photo was any good or not. I wonder how many drivers only made one trip to Moscow, got home and found that the shot was ruined in some way.

Vodka Cola Cowboy:

pv83:
Remember these lot…?

Cheers, Patrick

St Basil’s cathedral at the end of Red Square was the favourite place to get your truck photographed, in Moscow.
Obviously, you were not allowed to drive on Red Square itself, so this was the nearest you could get to it. But St Basil’s was another icon of Moscow and Russia that is immediately recognised around the world.

I used to go down to Red Square quite often when I lived in Moscow and it was quite funny when the authorities banned trucks from that part of the city. Drivers would drive down to that location, leap out of their cabs and take a hurried photo. Then leap back into the cab and drive off, before the Militia could catch them.

Seeing that in those days we did not have mobile phones and digital cameras, you did not know, until the old 35mm film was developed whether your photo was any good or not. I wonder how many drivers only made one trip to Moscow, got home and found that the shot was ruined in some way.

This seemed to be a popular spot as well…

I used to sneak through a bit Russia in my time as well, went as far as Corgos on the China border. Did a few back loads out of a foundry near Omsk then back through Samara Kyviv and the Ukrain Hungary, then back to Italy.
Dave Mackie used to go out through Finland when he was doing the gold mine down Samalkand way, we both used to use the M 32 to Symkent.

Jeff…

Good to see you posting again jeff!

Danne