The bear next door - Denis Knight

In 1973, at the height of the Cold War, Joanna and Denis Hilton and their little car, Yoddy, a bright yellow Toyota Celica, embarked on their greatest adventure -- a motoring holiday in the Soviet Union. They had booked passage on the Soviet cruise liner Alexandr Pushkin, which plied between Montreal and Leningrad during the summer months. With Yoddy winched up and dumped unceremoniously on the main deck, they finally cast off for Leningrad. The car caused a sensation everywhere she went. It wasn't her fault that they were arrested as soon as they arrived in Leningrad, neither was it her fault that they were turned back at the first road block on their six-hundred mile journey from Leningrad to Moscow. Let's just say that she stood out a mile among the drab Czechoslovakian Skodas and East German Trabbis that she met on the way. They were advised to keep a low profile as far as possible. Although foreigners were allowed to bring their own cars, it was (so we were told) courting disaster for anyone to bring themselves to the attention of 'those in authority'. Yoddy, bright yellow as she was, seemed to relish being stared at, so it was almost inevitable that the authorities went out of their way to watch them like hawks wherever they went. Suffice it to say that, after four weeks and, several thousand miles, Denis, Joanna and Yoddy returned safely, after enough excitement to last them a lifetime.