a Russian television crew saw Mark Warren, a retired fire Anchorage inspector out riding a Ural with a sidecar, interviewed him, the interview with Warren went viral in Russia, and when the Ural company in Russia saw it, they gifted him a new one!

Warren already owned one Ural motorcycle, purchased from a neighbor. He was out running errands on it a week before the summit when a Russian television crew saw him and asked for an interview.

Warren told the crew about his difficulty obtaining parts for the bike because of supply-and-demand issues.

“It went viral, it went crazy, and I have no idea why, because I’m really just a super-duper normal guy,” Warren said Tuesday. “They just interviewed some old guy on a Ural, and for some reason they think it’s cool.”

On Aug. 13, two days before the Trump-Putin summit to discuss the war in Ukraine, Warren received a call from the Russian journalist, who told him, “They’ve decided to give you a bike.”

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/alaska-man-gifted-22000-motorcycle-russian-government-after-124793316