hutpik:
We had a couple of motors painted in Nesotra colours when i worked for Veelo Veenendaal in the 80s.Together with Van Amerongen,Holtima and Rombouts they formed the co-operative of Nesotra[Nederland\Soviet Transport].
Have you got any photos Hutpik. Would be great to see them if you have.
Beside Nesotra there was Desotra, (Deutsch/Soviet Transport). But I seem to remember that they only ran 4 trucks.
Hi,i only have a few pics but don’t have a scanner or printer and live a bit in ‘‘the middle of nowhere’’.I worked forVeelo\ Nesotra\Sovtrans for a couple of years but during one of the early trips to Samarkand i had my cab done so didn’t bother with a camera after that.After a couple of years i Went back to doing ME as i prefered the Cultures.
I did a trip to Nizhnevartovsk about 5 years ago one Winter for a Norwegian guy with mining Equipment and said then that that would be the last time ever as the whole country had gone down the toilet [my personal opinion]with the corruption and general deterioration.
Hey, Nesotra from Holland was there in early day’s already, often seen, with the yellow Daf’s
Did much groupage ( part loads ) too.
Good drivers which were very helpfull in cold war day’s to a newcommer, still thanks the drivers of those day’s.
Eric,
hutpik:
Hi,i only have a few pics but don’t have a scanner or printer and live a bit in ‘‘the middle of nowhere’’.I worked forVeelo\ Nesotra\Sovtrans for a couple of years but during one of the early trips to Samarkand i had my cab done so didn’t bother with a camera after that.After a couple of years i Went back to doing ME as i prefered the Cultures.
I did a trip to Nizhnevartovsk about 5 years ago one Winter for a Norwegian guy with mining Equipment and said then that that would be the last time ever as the whole country had gone down the toilet [my personal opinion]with the corruption and general deterioration.
I had a camera stolen by the K.G.B. border control Officer at Kukariki. I also lost 4 Zippo lighters, by the same method. 
tiptop495:
Hey, Nesotra from Holland was there in early day’s already, often seen, with the yellow Daf’s
Did much groupage ( part loads ) too.
Good drivers which were very helpfull in cold war day’s to a newcommer, still thanks the drivers of those day’s.Eric,
Yes Eric. I remember one who had a Polish wife. She did not like him going to Russia because she did not trust Russian women.
sandway:
Morning Micky T. I am now two thirds of the way through your book. Its a great read. A true life adventure that many would aspire to but never succeed. Looking forward to reading the rest.
Good afternoon Sandway. Hope that the weather is not too hot for you down in Spain. I am glad that you are enjoying the book.
It was unfortunate that the East European hauliers hijacked the bulk of the work. They deprived British drivers of the opportunity to do what I had.
I thought that you might like to see this attachment.
It is taken from the latest edition of Truck and Driver.
I’m loving this thread, got to get a copy of the book too. Is it available in shops?
What happened to the whole Nesotra and Holtima operation?
Can’t find anything of them, seems they packed up some time ago…?
And I concur with newmercman, this turned out to be yet another fascinating thread indeed! As for that book, any copies still available?
Cheers, Patrick
Al i can say is that book is great! A really good read!
newmercman:
I’m loving this thread, got to get a copy of the book too. Is it available in shops?
Hi Newmercman. The book is available on line. It is available from Amazon U.K. or if you go into Google and then put in The Vodka Cola Cowboy it will bring up a number of sites that sell it.
The publisher is Old Pond Publishing and you can also buy it online from them.
Hope that you buy the book and that you enjoy it
pv83:
What happened to the whole Nesotra and Holtima operation?
Can’t find anything of them, seems they packed up some time ago…?And I concur with newmercman, this turned out to be yet another fascinating thread indeed! As for that book, any copies still available?
Cheers, Patrick
Hi Patrick. Please see the post above about where the book is available.
If you have any problems buying it contact me on here.
Dirty Dan:
Al i can say is that book is great! A really good read!
I have seen your post on the Pro-Motor site Dan When the Swedish magazine says that it is “A good read in the winter darkness”, does that mean that you should read it in the dark, so that you can’t see it. 
Thanks for your very kind comments. I am so glad that you enjoyed it
Haha well maby
Did you ever see any Swedes in your time i Russia? Iknow my friend johan and his dads company have done Russia. The are called Stjärnströms int AB.
Dirty Dan:
Haha well maby
Did you ever see any Swedes in your time i Russia? Iknow my friend johan and his dads company have done Russia. The are called Stjärnströms int AB.
To be honest Dan, I cannot remember. But, there again I am old and your memory goes when you are old like me. However, in Moscow I am sure that I did see Swedish boys and probably had a drink with them. You know how it was. All of the British, Dutch and Scandinavian drivers used to hang out together, same as we did in the Middle East and Yugoslavia.
Actually, thinking about it yes I did see some Swedish boys but mostly Finns
This is my mates company. Its a family run company,used to do m/e to.but now days its not many swedish drivers left… But thats just how it is now isnt?
I’ve seen those trucks with the spider on the side, I’ve not been to Russia or M/E, so it was probably in Sweden. Are they a big company Danne?
Hey, this was Russian too.
Dirty Dan:
This is my mates company. Its a family run company,used to do m/e to.but now days its not many swedish drivers left… But thats just how it is now isnt?
Brilliant photo Dan. I am sure that I saw these trucks around.
tiptop495:
Hey, this was Russian too.
That is an interesting photo Tip Top. I take it that the girl walked into the picture while you were photographing the truck.
An interesting truck as well. That is some sleeper cab.
Hi Micky T yes we were based in Udine N/E Italy and we did Corgos on the China border, just a bit north east of Almaty. There was a fair bit of back loading from there but myself and a few other guys did a fair bit of wandering about. If the was a change in plans we usually had to go to the transport chef who worked out of an office at the rail head in Almaty. Even though he was working for ( Kaz rail ) not sure of the actual translation, he could get authorisation for us to run in CCCP, Russian Federation or what ever they were calling it that week.
When we first started running Kaz they told us to buy a 1 week transport voucher, then another one to come back from the China end. Between bad roads “police safety checks” and weather it was between 3 to 5 days to get across and the same to come back. When we got the China side we couldn’t get transport vouchers ( transit tax ) anywhere, we even faxed back to the office and couldn’t fix it either so we ended up going back without them and got nailed at Astrakhan. After that we always got a month tax.
What we were doing was set up at a government level, all the trucks were satellite tracked and I’m sure it wasn’t just the office that new our exact location. And I would surmise that there were a few official folk along that were getting their palms pretty greasy.
We were told not to get involved with any locals, most of the nightly stops were at police inspection points, but after a bit of time at it we started to meet a few faces here and there. We were always a bit wary as we didn’t know who was who, or what they were after, I guess most folk were OK and just a bit curious. Our main outward bound customers were Smith Kline Beacham, Glaxo, Johnston & Johnston, and Pfizer. Coming back if you were loaded at the border it was mainly silk and spices and textiles, ( thousands of years later and nothing really changes )
In all the time we did it we were never offered nor thought we needed any kind of armed ■■■■■■, the only bit we go it was across about a 10 k bit of Kjrgystan that used to jut up into Kaz near Bishkek. We went that way cause every one else did and it saved a 60 k detour.
You got to the border payed about $20 per truck then got escorted though usually a convoy about every hour or so, more frequent if it got busy. No paperwork, no recite, no passport, crap road.
From the few people that we did get to know we got the feeling that there were a lot of people that did very well out of the communistic ear and that they had lost a lot because of what went on. Naturally they wanted it back, and that a lot of the new age Russian euntrepenaures were backed by unseen forces. But it was hard to get people to open as disappearing was still a fairly common hazard, and as you mentioned there were still a lot of unusual news items getting about. One that I do remember was a thing that went for about 5 mins on the KamaZ factory. The other thing that got me was the rampant alcoholism, mainly in men. You were hard pushed to find any males over 50, the farther east you went the worse it got.
Having said that they did like a good war memorial, but perhaps if they spent their money on social workers or just feeding the people rather than spending it on 1000’s of cubic meters of cement the place might have been a bit better.
It’s hard to make superficial comments on here after just mainly driving about in the country. I never really got into living in it as you seemed to have done.
There was a guy getting round that was doing a book called Karl Marx and the art of driving, he used to driver white British reg F 10 or 12. I’m not sure what it was about, but there was blog about it floating around a while back, I had the feeling he’d done philosophy at Cambridge.
I also went to Cambridge, I used to do 3 loads of bricks a week from Blyth. After doing an early morning delivery one wet winter morning I stopped to buy a pie at the baker and got a traffic ticket, which I thought was a bit ungrateful, as I’d stared at 4 in the morning to get there on time.
Jeff…
