An interesting thing I noticed in Siberia is that many, if not most, cars are right-hand drive. These cars are imported directly from Japan. This is strange because Russian drivers drive on right (like Americans do). I can't imagine driving a car with the steering wheel on the right side in right-side traffic--it would be like driving from the passenger's seat. It would be especially difficult to pass another car on right because you would have to nudge pretty much all of your car into the opposing lane before you could see if it's safe to pass. This is really dangerous considering that Russian drivers constantly pass other vehicles in all sorts of unsafe places (blind corners, through intersections, directly in the face of oncoming traffic). Basically, it's best not to watch when you're riding with a Russian driver. Russia tried to ban right-hand-drive cars a few years ago, but there was too much protest from drivers in Siberia and the Far East, so those cars are still legal. Actually, almost all the cars in Irkutsk were made in either Japan or Korea, which was noticeably different that in Vladimir, where there is a mix of German, French, Japanese, Korean, American, and Russian cars.