In latter part of Oct. I was on a trip to the country of Moldova (next to Ukraine) on a mission project with my local church. We were there for nine days bringing food and conversation to the elderly house in Soviet-era built and deteriorating massive apartment complexes in the capitol city, Chisinau. We also delivered bags of food and toiletries to Ukrainian refugees now being housed in Moldova. This was the main mission of the trip.

I had a personal secondary mission - wouldn’t it be something to find someone who owned an MG in Moldova? I knew my chances were slim. Moldova is the poorest country in Europe. Average yearly wage is $6,000. But people have cars and in Chisinau there are a lot. Mostly Toyotas, Volkswagens, Mercedes (including the taxis) Hondas, Skoda’s (Czech made)- any small car. I never once saw a pick-up truck and it was rare to see a sports car or a convertible.

Alas, I also never saw a MG and didn’t really have type apart from the mission work to pursue finding one. If I did, I was going to take a picture for you to look at and give the owner one of our CMGC badges that I brought with me. The best I could to do was to give it to 12–14-year refugee boy. I showed him a picture of my “B” and he seemed to be very interested. So somewhere in Moldova and hopefully, eventually in the Ukraine there is a boy with our badge logo on his backpack.


One interesting car that I did find was an early 1960’s era Soviet-made, sporty convertible called the Volga. This was on display at a restaurant along with other Soviet era made cars. Only fourteen of these specialty-made convertible models were made for the purpose on having Soviet generals or Party officials sit on the back during parades (think Khrushchev playing homecoming queen). I didn’t realize it at the time but front of the car actually resembles the front of my “B” and look at the taillights!!! Anyway, it was a good, meaningful trip. Only received one alert warning from the US Embassy. Glad to be back and tool around in the “B” in this soon to end autumn season.

~~ Kevin Carlson