Retired Fire Inspector in Anchorage Gets Ural Sidecar Motorcycle

Retired Fire Inspector in Anchorage Gets Ural Sidecar Motorcycle
  • calendar_today August 9, 2025
  • News

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — It was a summit week between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Anchorage that had so many potential players. There was a local civic leader, a woman from a University of Alaska real estate class and a University of Alaska graduate student. But then there’s the guy with the motorcycle.

A retired fire inspector with the Municipality of Anchorage, Mark Warren was approached by a Russian television crew for an interview that went viral in Russia. And the biggest gift from Putin’s visit to Alaska so far might be the new motorcycle Warren rode off with from the Russians last week.

Warren, a father of two and grandfather of four, said he had no idea the day he was going on errands on his motorcycle in mid-August would take him on a detour to international notoriety. He even had questions about why he got the $22,000 Ural Gear Up motorcycle with a sidecar the Russians delivered for him last week.

“I went, ‘Really? A free bike?’” Warren told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Warren said he’s already got a Ural. He’s had it for six years and bought it used from a neighbor, he said. But he also said it’s been difficult keeping the bike he has running. And that’s the one thing he told the Russian reporter who interviewed him. The bike he has can be hard to find parts for, and often demand outstrips supply, he told the Russian reporter who recorded the interview last month.

“I didn’t think much of it. It went viral, it went crazy, and I have no idea why, because I’m really just a super-duper normal guy,” Warren said. “They just interviewed some old guy on a Ural, and for some reason they think it’s cool.”

Warren said his next experience after the interview also came as a surprise. After the Trump-Putin summit last week, a Russian journalist he had been interviewed by on Aug. 13 texted him. “They’ve decided to give you a bike,” he remembers the Russian journalist saying.

It seemed too good to be true, Warren said. And it also was, at first. He said he didn’t really think it would happen. But then came a second call. This time it was someone telling him that, indeed, the bike was in Anchorage.

The next day, he and his wife were told to simply go to a hotel in town. Warren said he and his wife walked into a hotel meeting room and he was still not sure what to expect. There were six men he assumed were Russians and the olive-green Ural Gear Up motorcycle with a sidecar in the parking lot waiting for him.

“I dropped my jaw,” Warren said. “I went, ‘You’ve got to be joking me.’”

They asked for little in return, he said. Just some photos and another interview. They wanted video of him on the motorcycle. He obliged. The Russians loaded into the sidecar two reporters and someone Warren said he thought was from the Russian consulate. Warren, the motorcycle and a cameraman jogging alongside for video would circle the hotel parking lot.

The tradeoff was still nagging, though. There are always hesitations with gifts from foreign governments. So he said he has some wariness. He even said he didn’t want people to get mad that he received a free motorcycle from Russia.

“The only reservation I had is that I might somehow be implicated in some nefarious Russian scheme,” Warren said. “I don’t want a bunch of haters coming after me that I got a Russian motorcycle. … I don’t want this for my family.”

He added the only papers he signed were for the delivery of the motorcycle and to officially take ownership of the bike from the Russian Embassy. He said he didn’t see any documents that listed who at the Russian Embassy authorized the gift. He had one question for Russian Embassy staff when he went to pick up the motorcycle.

“They asked how did I know it was new and I told them it rolled off the showroom floor on Aug. 12,” Warren said. “I mean, the obvious thing here is that it rolled off the showroom floor and slid into a jet within probably 24 hours.”

Warren, who said he loves to tinker with machines, has ridden home. He added that he is happy about the free motorcycle.