The Lada Niva was popular because it was one of the very few socialist block cars that could officially go proper off-road, in other words, people had no choice

The Lada Niva was popular because it was one of the very few socialist block cars that could officially go proper off-road, in other words, people had no choice (welcome to the wonderful world of socialism!). But it was - and still is, can't believe they still make it - a _terrible_ car by any standard, and I can't really understand anyone buying one today. They are not cheap, have terrible design, terrible build quality, terrible fuel consumption, they are loud, and break easily - and they are not THAT good off-road ironically. If you want to put them somewhere on a map, they are about as bad as 70s British cars were.