The unloved middle seat: who’s up for an 8,000km ride through South America?
apartment, which was linked to a workplace, and waited. And waited. And waited. Or you went to Chelny (which, for a short time in the 1980s, was renamed Brezhnev, in honour of the General Secretary of the Communist Party). There you could get an apartment straight away, everything was new, the Kamaz plant was the destination for the city’s six tramlines, and there was a river which served as a recreation area. The Soviet authorities also concentrated their petrochemical activities in Nizhhnekamsk, just 40km upstream. Today, in a Chelny criss-crossed by 20 tramlines, there is still no real centre (not even the Kamaz plant), no monument to act as the prime civic focus. Only longtime residents can tell the difference between apartment blocks of the 1970s and the 1990s, and visitors must look hard for a fixed point of reference. 82
There is one a few streets from the main Kamaz plant. In a functional building dating from 2007, is Kamaz Master, the sporting division of Kamaz. For the last quarter of a century, its racing trucks have been entered in every Dakar Rally, and have won 11 times. The elite of the firm work at Kamaz Master, 110 people in all. Today is a Russian national holiday, but it’s business as usual there, with one difference: in the canteen, where the staff line up quietly and everyone sits together regardless of rank or age, the food is free. A large glass bridge, from which there’s a great view of the assembly hall, is also where the trophies are displayed. There are more than a hundred in total; the more important the victory, the more prominent the position. The trophies for overall victory in the Dakar are placed on a Russian flag in the centre. the red bulletin