Avtomobilizatsia

In Moscow last week, the 150,000 or so citizens who are privileged to own private cars were engaged in an annual spring ritual. First, they stripped the tarpaulins from their autos, most of which had been left under wraps all winter because of the ferocious frosts. Then the cars were carefully polished (a dirty auto can bring a $ 1 fine), and inspected by police. Only after that could Moscow's motorists stream out of the city for the budding birch woods and the May Day weekend, the first three-day holiday of the spring season.

They encountered few traffic jams, but that idyllic situation may not last long. For the first time in history, the Soviet government is making a massive, long-term investment in order to meet consumer demand. A main part of that drive is aimed at satisfying Russia's growing auto mania, or avtomobilizatsia, which is now rampant from Tallin to Tomsk. Russians are stampeding to buy the $5,600 Italian-designed Zhiguli cars, adapted from the Fiat 124, that are rolling off the new assembly line at Togliatti at the rate of 1,000 per day.

Social Impact. The auto age is already beginning to affect Soviet manners and morals in ways that the regime may not have entirely foreseen. TIME Correspondent John Shaw cables from Moscow: "The new mobility provided by the auto is bound to make Russians more individualistic as it frees them from the disciplines of communal life. In this vast country, where many Soviet citizens live in apartments not much bigger than the cars they hope to buy, the most important thing the auto offers is transport to solitude."

Russia's modest advance into the automotive age is also having an incalculable economic impact. The investment to meet consumer demand requires reallocation of steel, rubber and gasoline from the Soviet defense establishment. A gigantic highway construction program is needed, and so is a network of gas stations and repair shops, both of which are woefully scarce.

Some of the problems of avtomobilizatsia are all too familiar to Americans. In spite of the most stringent laws against drunken driving, half the traffic accidents in the Soviet Union, exactly as in the U.S., are caused by overimbibers. Other problems are peculiarly Russian. Most roads remain primitive in the extreme, and besides the perils of potholes, motorists must cope with farmers who thresh their wheat and build their log cabins right on the highways so that they can reach them more easily.

Symbolic Value. In spite of such aggravations, there is no more potent symbol of prestige than the auto in the Soviet Union today. The Communist state has paradoxically chosen not to produce "people's cars," but to build medium-sized vehicles that range in price from $4,000 to $11,000. Workers who make an average wage of $180 a month can scarcely afford them. Even bureaucrats and professionals often have to save up for years to buy them, then have to wait as long as a year and a half for delivery.

Russian auto owners must defend themselves from a new breed of criminal--car thieves. Before leaving a parked car, the Soviet owner customarily removes the windshield wipers, gas tank cap and aerial, and locks them inside, out of the reach of pilferers. Some of the cleverest car thieves have now been thwarted for the summer. During the winter a thief will often steal a car off the street and substitute it for a similar model that has been put up for the season under a tarpaulin. The police are left to hunt for a car that is hidden away --at least until spring, when the owner discovers that the shape under the tarp is not his own. By then, his car may have found a home 2,000 miles away in Samarkand.

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