A story from the Russian blogger who names himself “ntv”:
“I had to write this blog entry, since many still cannot believe I managed to purchase a BRDM-2 (Combat Reconnaissance/Patrol Vehicle). Yes, I really did buy it, and brought it to Russia myself”.
“It all started early this year, when one of my friends developed a keen interest in combat vehicles. I have to admit, the idea of actually buying one didn’t enter his mind, but the less he was interested in getting one, the more my own interest bloomed.
So, in early June I headed out to the dear-to-my-heart Republic of Belarus.
Turns out, during the summer, the prices for all combat armored vehicles in Russia rise rapidly, and the only affordable ones are severely beat up or suspicious models without any documentation. Of course I suspected that transporting and successfully gaining entry from Belarus would not be an easy task, but there were no other options.
Belarus overall and it’s Defence Ministry in particular do sell a tremendous amount of various combat and non-combat items. Recently they created a moderately easy-to-use website, which contains information on all items up for sale”.
“They sell everything, from teapots to speedboats, armored personnel carriers and planes. I heard that soon they are going to make it a fully-fledged online store with a shopping basket and delivery services. “Your basket contains 1 item: a T-64B tank. Do you want to continue shopping?”. Fricking amazing! At times the catalogue contains photos of the items, but it’s best to view things like that for yourself. Unfortunately, foreign nationals (including russians) have to book a visit two weeks in advance with the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus (KGB RB for short), otherwise you won’t be able to enter the military bases.
All purchases of combat vehicles and surplus are dealt with via a belarusian government company “BelSpetzContract” (BSC). They’re located in this lovely red brick building, which I had to visit many a time.”
“Of course I didn’t have an account in a Belarusian bank, so I had to pay cash. To be quite honest, gathering 100 mil. belarusian rubles is not for the faint of heart. Credit card and currency exchange limits can seriously mess with your plans, but that’s not even the biggest problem. The real trouble is that the biggest paper money Belarus has is 200,000, and 100 million even in the biggest bills is a very large stack. The shot below shows just 25 million, so the final amount was 4 times thicker”.
“Finally, after cleaning out all the Sberbank ATMs, paying the bill and gathering up all the documents I went out to get my brand new ride. I needed not only to get the BRDM-2, but also transport it all the way back to Moscow. The idea of just riding it there flew out of the window immediately, so I had to find a car carrier trailer driver that agreed to help me out for a $1,000. I was actually really lucky the driver turned out to be belarusian and could freely enter the military base to get the armored vehicle I bought. As I said, I had to write two weeks in advance to the belarusian KGB, to warn them of my visit. Which I unfortunately didn’t do and had to wait outside and make selfies while the driver and the soldiers loaded the BRDM into the car carrier”.
“Finally, the car carrier appeared over the bend, with my shiny new toy right in the back slot. Honestly I didn’t feel a hint of trepidation, as I was really exhausted from running back and forth all over the place with the documents to get this thing done”.
“For extra safety, we decided to belt the BRDM in place with steel cabling and deflate it’s wheels. We turned it facing back, so it wouldn’t scare people behind us too much”.
“You’ve already noticed that the BRDM wasn’t the only vehicle on the carrier. It had some wonderful company:
1) A quad bike
2) A Porsche Cayenne with a beat up bumper
3) And a completely new Chevvy Corvette”
“The Corvette was really cool, but it costs like 30 BRDM-2′s!”
“On the way we were stopped four times. We were only asked to show proper documentation on the fourth stop, all others were limited to shocked questions “WHAT THE HELL KINDA TANK IS THIS?!”
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