An Alaskan resident has shared that Russian President Vladimir Putin presented him with a gift valued at over $20,000 during Putin’s visit to the United States.
President Donald Trump hosted President Putin in North America on Friday, August 15, aiming to leverage his dealmaking skills to potentially resolve the conflict in Ukraine.
Despite the high hopes, the meeting did not result in any peace agreement. Nevertheless, Trump took the opportunity to display the US’s B-2 bomber, which he arranged to fly over Putin. However, the trip turned out to be particularly memorable for Mark Warren, who describes himself as just a “super-duper normal guy.”
Warren, a retired fire inspector from the Municipality of Anchorage, was approached by a Russian TV crew for an interview while he was out on his motorcycle a week before the summit.
He explained to them that his motorcycle is a Ural, a brand established in western Siberia in 1941, which he bought from a neighbor. He also mentioned the difficulties he faced in sourcing parts.
To his surprise, Warren became an internet sensation in Russia.
“It went viral, it went crazy, and I have no idea why, because I’m really just a super-duper normal guy,” Warren mentioned recently. “They just interviewed some old guy on a Ural, and for some reason they think it’s cool.”
Just days before Putin’s meeting with Trump, Warren was informed that the Russian government had decided to present him with a Ural Gear Up motorcycle complete with a sidecar.
The olive-green motorcycle is priced at $22,000.
Initially, Warren suspected it was a hoax, but after the summit ended and Putin left Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, he received another call confirming the motorcycle’s arrival at the base.
“I dropped my jaw,” he recounted. “I went, ’You’ve got to be joking me’.”
While completing the paperwork to officially take possession of the bike from the Russian Embassy in the US, he noted it was manufactured just the week before.
Ural manufactures its motorcycles in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan, and distributes them through a network based in Woodinville, Washington.
“The obvious thing here is that it rolled off the showroom floor and slid into a jet within probably 24 hours,” Warren observed.