Ethiopia 2024 – AFP

“This car is from 1987, only a few years older than me. Keeping it running is becoming more and more of a challenge, but I am fond of it. It has been my cab and my livelihood for so long.” Tesfahun Assefa is one of the last Lada 1200 model cab drivers in Addis Ababa.

In the former USSR, they were known as “The Russian Dream” or “Zhiguli.” In Ethiopia, they arrived in the 1970s and 1980s, during the rule of the Marxist Derg military regime, which had strong ties to the USSR. Since then, the Lada has become a cultural and social symbol of the Ethiopian capital.

For the citizens of what is now a large and developing metropolis, the blue-and-white Lada cabs have been a constant and familiar presence for decades. But their days are now numbered as the city undergoes profound and abrupt transformations.

The Ethiopian authorities banned the import of petrol-powered vehicles this year, aiming to push drivers towards newer, primarily electric cars. The last Lada taxi drivers, like Tesfahun, are struggling to adapt.

“We have no money to buy a new car. I will have to think about finding a new job to survive,” he says.
Currently, the last remaining Ladas are being used as alternatives to minibuses or for transporting goods.
“I am really sad to lose this piece of history. But we don’t have spare parts anymore, and it’s difficult to make new ones,” says Tamiru Melaku, one of the last mechanics specializing in this model in the Kechene Medhane Alem district. “In a few years, they will be gone, but I’ve decided to keep them for the sake of affection,” he concludes.

Inside Tesfahun’s Lada is the inscription: “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble.” In Ethiopia today, you must survive the “necessary transformation”…