Governor Arnold was so excited. The cutest boy in the G8, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, was coming to pick him up for a date. He even borrowed his dad's Chaika! Schwarzenegger was the happiest girl in the Russian Federation.

We'd all love an obsessively detailed 1:18 scale Volvo 240 coupe on our desks, of course, but no collection of automotive tchotchkes is complete without some Soviet iron!

Sure, it looks like a Chevrolet Volt that wandered into a pizza oven, but when you're talking about a brand that once inspired a quasi-satanic kidnapping legend, you could do a heck of a lot worse.

57Sweptside loves junkyards, and not just the ones in his native Southwest. He's found for us this collection of photos shot in a Russian yard packed full of Volgas, Moskviches, and even Tchaikas.

This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition, where we check out interesting street-parked cars located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot. Anything is possible, even a Volga in Southern California!

Have we ever mentioned that we love English Russia? It's like they knew we were going to review Cars Of The Soviet Union and put up this collection of vintage Soviet racing photos for us!

Whether you're wrenching on a flying Spitfire or a leaking Spitfire, Haynes has a shop manual for you. Very useful, but hardly the sort of thing you'd keep on your coffee table.

Another photo from the happy past shows former Presidents Bush And Putin driving the Russian leader's awesome 1956 Volga around Moscow. Four years later and Russian-American relations have never been stronger!

Are those louvers for a rear-engine setup in this Volga, perhaps some nightmarish GAZ-ZAZ hybrid?