Maybe it was not hard to guess that the Bike Shop would be the first place I wanted to visit. It's a biker thing.
| The Bike Shop |
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Maybe it was not hard to guess that the Bike Shop would be the first place I wanted to visit. It's a biker thing. |
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No motorcycle shop could survive a catastrophe like this. |
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This is a 1986 sales sticker for a Chezet, 26hp, 343cc, motorcycle. Price at that time was 1,050 rubles. Using today's (2007) conversion rates, this converts to approximately $40.40. Chezet! It was the ultimate dream machine for all young bikers in the Soviet Union. I remember being a schoolgirl in a crowd of bad boys hanging outside and drooling on the showcase window of the cycle shop...dreaming of what we could do with a 26 hp bike because Grandpa's crippled dinosaur had only 15 ponies. How in HELL could we ever afford it in this lifetime? The average monthly wage then was only 180 rubbles, or approximately $6.93 using today's (2007) conversion rates. When the town siren went off on Sunday morning, mass panic ensued. With the police evacuating along with everyone else, banks and even jewelry stores went relatively unnoticed and untouched. However, this bike shop was emptied out in a matter of an hour. The police began shooting looters in May of 1986 when radioactive TV sets began to appear in Kiev's pawn shops. |
View the "Ghost Town" Video  |
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