The British have a unique sense of humor – think Monty Python and Benny Hill – and there's no reason that the 2012 Olympics shouldn't be cause for celebrating it.
So when we caught wind of this story from the BBC, we had to smile. It seems Londoners fed up with the Olympic intrusion into their daily lives have dubbed the special lanes of traffic used by athletes and IOC officials "ZIL lanes," in reference to the notorious practice of having dedicated lanes of traffic for Communist Party poobahs in the Soviet Union.
ZIL was the manufacturer of the giant black limousines – like the 114 model pictured above – that denoted party power in the old USSR. Despite having little traffic at the time, Moscow had a few of these rezervniye polosy lanes, according to the BBC, one of which is still in operation. While the ZIL limos are now resigned to history, Kutuzovsky Prospekt now sees plenty of high-powered German machinery ferrying Russian officials past the proletariat.
So when we caught wind of this story from the BBC, we had to smile. It seems Londoners fed up with the Olympic intrusion into their daily lives have dubbed the special lanes of traffic used by athletes and IOC officials "ZIL lanes," in reference to the notorious practice of having dedicated lanes of traffic for Communist Party poobahs in the Soviet Union.
ZIL was the manufacturer of the giant black limousines – like the 114 model pictured above – that denoted party power in the old USSR. Despite having little traffic at the time, Moscow had a few of these rezervniye polosy lanes, according to the BBC, one of which is still in operation. While the ZIL limos are now resigned to history, Kutuzovsky Prospekt now sees plenty of high-powered German machinery ferrying Russian officials past the proletariat.
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