Fur Hats, Blowtorches Come In Handy : Cars Losing Battle of Winter in Moscow

Fur hats, blowtorches and shovels are proving useful to Moscow residents as they try to coax their cars onto the road in the coldest start to a year since 1950.

Muscovites have been waking regularly to the sound of cars coughing and spluttering in clouds of exhaust fumes as temperatures plunge to 22 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

Some citizens familiar with the rigors of winter abandon their cars for the season, and their machines slowly vanish into mounds of snow by the roadside. Other drivers need all their experience and inventiveness to bring their cars to life.

People often huddle in the snow, warming the undersides of cars with blowtorches. Some remove the batteries from their cars at night to keep them warm in their homes. Others put methylated spirits into their gasoline to prevent it freezing.

Battery Hat

“I find wrapping my shapka (fur hat) around the battery at night helps my car start,” one Western resident said.

Others are resigned to the daily ritual of hailing fellow drivers to give them a push to start or to recharge their batteries.

Selecting the wrong parking place or leaving a car outside too long can be risky. Snowplows leave large piles of snow as they clear the roads, sometimes blocking cars in, so that drivers have to dig them out with a shovel.

One foreign resident returning home one recent evening found his street blocked off by a pile of snow apparently abandoned by a snow-clearing machine, known as a “capitalist” because it devours everything in its path.

Ice, Unpredictable Drivers

Drivers must also cope with roads as icy as skating rinks and unpredictable drivers who seem to have little respect for traffic laws.

The annual number of road accidents is not available. But Leonid Zverkovsky, Soviet Police traffic chief, told the weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta recently that the figure was alarming.

Reporters traveling the 30 miles from central Moscow to Sheremetevo Airport and back one particularly icy day last December saw eight accidents in their hour-long drive.

A Soviet chauffeur said that, like many Muscovites, he preferred not to use his private car from November to March.

Many Cars Put Away

“About half of all drivers put their car away for winter,” he said. “The salt on the roads is bad for cars, and the roads are slippery. Anyway, public transport is good.”

Road surfaces deteriorate rapidly in the cold climate and, according to Zverkovsky, road repairs cost the Soviet Union about $15 million a year.

About 20% of road accidents were caused by damaged roads and the figure was growing, he said.

Western drivers’ problems go on after winter ends. Foreign insignia and windscreen wipers are popular targets for thieves, and their cars are easily picked out because of their special license plates.

Few Left Turns

Many are frustrated by a road system in which cars can rarely turn left, and detailed road maps are scarce.

Anomalies of the Soviet traffic system include the central “Zil lane,” reserved for cars carrying senior officials.

The sight of eagle-eyed, omnipresent traffic police clad in thick, gray winter coats arguing with drivers they have waved down with their white-and-black-striped batons is common.

Drivers can be fined for having illegible license plates and are prohibited from driving after drinking any alcohol whatsoever. Soviet citizens complain that they are often stopped for trivial or non-existent offenses.

Saving Graces

The main consolations of driving in Moscow are the great width of roads and the lack of traffic, which brings the considerable advantage of plentiful parking spaces.

No figures were available on the number of Soviet car owners. But officials estimate there will be 1 million private car owners in Moscow by the year 2000, a relatively low figure for a major capital with some 8 million people and another 2 million who come in from the provinces each day.