The Niva is rightfully considered the best domestic off-road car: driving in mud – there is plenty of video material available online – will give you the opportunity to finally be convinced of the car’s off-road properties. Initially, the Chevrolet Niva was positioned on the market as a worthy replacement for the legendary VAZ-2121. Indeed, the new car’s off-road performance is truly excellent: no worse than its predecessor.
Thanks to this feature, as well as due to its reliability, ease of operation and maintenance and, naturally, due to its low market price, the new Niva has gained overwhelming popularity. Let's take a closer look at the car's off-road potential, and also watch some video materials to confirm the facts below.
Niva-Gelendvagen
The six-wheeled all-terrain vehicle is made in the image and likeness of the Mercedes-AMG G 63 6x6, which was once developed for the needs of the Australian army.
Niva-quadrocar
You don’t often see a VAZ-2121 in this guise. In the form of a quad car - an extreme SUV with giant wheels - the donor car is not easy to recognize: in fact, only part of the body remains from it.
The SUV was equipped with 46-inch wheels with lightweight A-201 tires, and was also equipped with a central wheel inflation system. Plus: fender flares, radio-controlled winches, snorkels, sand trucks and much more necessary for off-road travel.
Niva is like a premonition. Two days with Chevrolet Niva in the forests and swamps of the Ivanovo region.
Almost 330 years ago, Alexander Radishchev’s story “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” was published. The story was a collection of scattered fragments, interconnected by the names of post stations of cities and villages, past which the traveler follows. Something like the first travel blog. In society, Radishchev’s work had the effect of a bomb exploding, even reaching the reaction of the empress.
After 3 centuries, communication has been established between the two capitals: peregrine falcons, cars and planes ply, but, often, outside the federal highways, everything froze during the time of Catherine.
However, this situation is typical not only for the Leningrad direction. It’s worth driving 50-100 km from Moscow and you can find yourself among empty villages, impassable paths, laid by someone who knows when, and abandoned churches. A real gift for lovers of off-road travel!
To test this hypothesis, we went to the Yaroslavl and Ivanovo regions in the company of Chevrolet Niva cars.
I have always had an ambiguous attitude towards the Niva: I believed that they buy it only when absolutely necessary - to get to the village off-road. Such a spartan car without the joy of driving.
As it turned out, over 16 years, GM-AvtoVAZ engineers have made great progress in their work, and the hero of today’s trip looks and drives great. But first things first. While we have the opportunity, we take pictures of the cars clean and undamaged.
We are going on a trip in a Chevrolet Niva in the new LE configuration, it is distinguished by “goodies” invented specifically for lovers of active rides - hunters, fishermen and bloggers: unpainted moldings, certified snorkel and a square for a winch and other nice things. There is even a rear view camera that displays an image on the rear view mirror.
Inside the Niva reigns what cunning marketers usually call a proven design. The salon takes us back to 2002, or even earlier. Meanwhile, all the buttons are pressed (not the first time, but nevertheless), the air conditioner cools, and the gears are engaged. Speaking of gear shifting, they engage with a noticeable impact in the area of the driveshaft. As GM-AvtoVAZ engineers said (they were traveling in a convoy), these are functional noises)))
There is even a heated windshield, and the side mirrors get so hot that you can burn your hand. GM-AvtoVAZ is uncompromising!
Our route is designed in such a way as to minimize travel on asphalt roads. Only offroad and primers. As someone from the group counted, during three days of driving through forests and fields, we experienced more than 12 different types of coverage. I believe that this was done for a reason: on the highway, the Niva desperately lacks engine power. Overtaking requires precision calculation, and the speedometer needle seems to freeze in place after 120 km/h.
Indeed, as a good off-road trip should, it all starts quite sedately - we drive along forest paths...
... which suddenly turn into brick primers. Rich!
And to top it all off, the route takes us completely into the fields, where, sometimes winding along barely noticeable roads, our journey to Catherine’s times continues.
Here it is worth making a remark that on both days the column did not move along some abstract route, but strictly along a pre-rolled track. For the sake of the purity of the experiment, the track was driven on the same Chevy Niva, but the reconnaissance vehicle was alone the day before until late at night. So we were internally prepared for all sorts of excesses.
And they didn’t have to wait long. Before reaching the ford (let me remind you that the Chevrolet Niva is capable of overcoming a water barrier up to 500 mm deep) we encounter a stuck KamAZ. In a strange twist of fate, the truck was carrying sand to the village (previously stolen from a nearby quarry) and got stuck on a clay rise. The comical situation was that the drivers poured almost all the sand under their wheels, hoping to get out, and also in the fact that a normal asphalt road leads to the village not too far from the ford. Adventurism of the highest standard!
A plan to rescue the KamAZ with the help of three Nivas and ropes connected to each other immediately matured in my head, but the driver managed to leave on his own, finally swearing at the failed rescuers.
Against the backdrop of the misadventures of the thieving truck, crossing the river turned out to be even less spectacular than one might have expected. Gas to the floor and the car just goes!
Another 30 minutes of wandering along country roads and we enter civilization - the village of Sima. Despite the external decline and general unsightliness, this is a historical place: the great commander P.I. Bagration found his peace here. The world's first pirate Starbucks was also born.
The next special stage is coquettishly called “deep ruts”, but in reality it is a narrow strip of land, laid by someone unknown in the middle of swamps and swamps. There are also deep ruts, and in addition to them, there are also crowds of flying midges - I have only seen so many blood-sucking creatures in Siberia.
It all starts off pretty well...
...but with every meter the road became worse, the ruts became deeper and wetter. From the walkie-talkie, like a mantra, “Don’t give up the gas!” was constantly heard, and the swamp slurry sometimes covered the hood.
In the surrounding villages, our improvised convoy was a constant success: Chevrolet Nivas, dirty to the roof, appeared from where cars had not come for a good ten years, if not more. And here another superpower of the Niva is revealed: such a visit in any foreign car would most likely be received with hostility by the local population, they say you are ruining forests, dragging dirt and generally have nothing to do here. But when the same car was parked at every second house, instead of negativity, local men asked approvingly about the details of the route and admired it obscenely. Niva brings people together.
The exact date of the founding of the village of Mirslavl, Gavrilovo-Posad district, Ivanovo region, where we suddenly teleported, is unknown, but the first mention of it dates back to the 18th century. Now it is home to a little more than 100 residents.
Among the historical attractions there is only the abandoned Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker:
And on the other bank of the Nerl River (the same one on which the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl stands in the Vladimir region) a former hydroelectric power station is living out its life. They were built en masse in the 50s for the needs of local collective farms. However, after some time, due to floods, the stations were flooded and they were out of order.
The abandoned bell tower of the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God of All Who Sorrow Joy in the village of Nenashevskoye, Yuryev-Polsky district, Vladimir region, would decorate the square of any European city, but in the end it pleases only a few visitors to the local grocery store.
We finished in the city of Yuryev-Polsky, where at one time the great schemer Ostap Bender met Panikovsky.
Three days in the company of Chevy Niva revealed to me an amazingly simple thing. Traveling around Russia among non-travelers is often considered something dangerous, unpredictable and requiring considerable expenses. Including regarding the selection and preparation of the vehicle. Of course, traveling in a premium SUV is pleasant (and not only in Russia), but there is a solution for the thrifty traveler. The baby Chevrolet Niva has shown itself to be a real off-road fighter - brutal, simple as a Kalashnikov assault rifle, it just goes and drives cool. Of course, the Niva is not without its shortcomings, but the almost half-million dollar difference in price with its closest competitor forces us to look at the shortcomings of the brainchild of GM-AvtoVAZ philosophically.
Niva is a premonition. A premonition of traveling around your native country, discovering its unexplored corners, which are sometimes an hour or two leisurely (remember the engine) car ride. Domestic tourism is the very trigger that helps you understand and love Russia. Which means making it better.
