I grew up with these Lada jokes and for me Ladas were just something ridiculous and for some reason I can only remember them in this godawful cream colour tinged with rust around every possible edge. Then a couple of years back I visited Georgia and Armenia and I saw moderately well maintained Ladas in black and I have to say there was something very charming about them! Tbilisi can be pretty hilly and steep and I was pretty surprised to see Ladas zipping up and down them with ease, side by side with shiny BMWs and Mercedes[1]. I also loved the GAZ Volga, I think they're a bit rarer though.
[1] there's heaps of new-ish Mercedes, BMW, Audi etc (many right-hand drive) in Georgia which is confusing as it's not a wealthy country at all. I got talking to an Insurance guy who'd told me this is because Georgia is the end of the line for a chain of insurance fraud starting in the UK\Germany, where cars would be "stolen", claimed on insurance and then moved on + re-registered somehow in the next country. This process is repeated until they ended up in Georgia and were sold for a knockdown price because they'd already recouped their money many times over. Ex-USSR countries are really interesting and I'd thoroughly recommend them for a visit, just learn a couple of phrases in the local language or Russian to make things a little smoother :)
I wonder how they get there.