As far as random, unexpected gifts go, it's hard to beat a free motorcycle
, especially if that motorcycle comes with its own sidecar. But what would you do if the person giving you the free motorcycle also happened to be a dangerous dictator? You wouldn't think that would be a conundrum anyone would have to deal with here in the U.S., but that's also exactly what happened to one Alaskan man following Trump's trip to brown-nose Putin, Alaska's News Source reports.Mark Warren lives in Bird Creek,
southeast of Anchorage, and according to Warren, he received a seemingly random phone call telling him he had been given a new Ural motorcycle and that it was waiting for him at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. "I thought it was a hoax because they don't know me. I don't know them," Warren told Alaska's News Source, a totally understandable reaction from a guy who had no idea why the Russian dictator would give him a motorcycle, seemingly at random. "I said call me when it's off base, because at this point I just felt, this is so random and so strange that I felt apprehensive about this being actually really going to happen ... this doesn't just happen. I know no one from the Russian Embassy."
Except it wasn't a hoax, and Russia really did give him a free Ural. According to a document he later received from the Embassy of the Russian Federation in the U.S., "The Embassy of the Russian Federation in the United States of America on behalf of the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir V. Putin, transfers as an act of giving the following property: Motorcycle 'Gear-Up.'" So now he has a new Ural, complete with its own little sidecar.
Read more: Why American Semi Trucks Usually Have Long Noses (But European Trucks Are Flat)
It's Russian Propaganda All The Way Down
While the documents provided by the Russian embassy didn't explain why, exactly, Putin chose to give Warren a free motorcycle, the gift isn't quite as random as it may initially appear. Warren already owned a Ural before being given the new one, and back on August 6, he reportedly met a group of Russian journalists who briefly interviewed him about his motorcycle.
"There were two gentlemen at an intersection that stopped me, and they identified themselves as Russian journalists, and they were interested in why I had the bike," Warren told Alaska's News Source. "It was purely just information about the bike, why I bought it, and about what I did to fix it up." One of those journalists later called him to tell him their story had gone viral in Russia. A few days after that phone call, Warren learned he'd be receiving the new, free Ural.
You can pretty much connect the dots from there. Clearly, Putin saw the story of an American owning a Ural as a propaganda opportunity and great advertising for Ural. See? Even this American recognizes the superiority of the great Russian motorcycle.
That also left Warren in a weird position, but ultimately, he decided to accept the bike. Why? As Alaska's News Source put it, "Warren said that he did not have any second thoughts about accepting the gift, but did say he had hesitation about rejecting it."
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