PAZ

The Pavlovo Bus Plant in the Nizhny Novgorod region builds small buses. Founded in 1930 as a tool works, it was converted to bus production in 1952.

Its first volume model was the PAZ-651, a suburban bus for 23 passengers on the GAZ-51 chassis. In 1958 came the PAZ-652 with an all-metal body of the plant's own design — a clear step up from its wood-and-metal predecessors, and the start of the recognisable PAZ style.

The plant's biggest success was the PAZ-672, built from 1968 to 1989: more than 280,000 of them served suburban and inter-district routes across the Soviet Union. Its successor, the PAZ-3205, arrived in 1989 and is still built with only minor changes, remaining the most numerous bus in Russia. The “PAZik” is part of daily life in small Russian towns and villages.