I picked up my Suzuki with Dnepr sidecar in California last week and drove it home to Wa. I'll post trip details later, but I thought others might like this information:
As I was travelling, a gentleman asked about my rig. I told him the hack was Ukrainian, and he said "So am I!", I told him it was a Dnepr, and he called his girlfriend over and said "look at this sidecar, it's from home, it's a Nyepper!"
I've heard it pronounced "nepper" and "Duh nepper", but he said "nyepper" as in "Nyet". So there you go.
-Doug C.
Except that at a craft show last summer I met an aged couple selling Russian art,crafts,and military stuff. Uniforms, photos, ribbons, etc. I asked if they had anything related to the Dnepr, pronouncing it Nepper, as I had been told. They looked at each other, shrugged and said they had never heard of such a thing. They were familiar with Urals but no other. Later in the day they happened to come walking past the parking lot as I was leaving. The man started to laugh and said "Dee-NEE-Pro! Must be from a different part of town. :0) But then, my Dad used to speak High German and another relative low German and half the time you couldn't understand his cousin.
My wife, Olga, is Ukrainian, She also has taught Russian language in American colleges. Olga says that the Russian pronunciation is dNyeper (the 'd' is pronounced, but very softly and the 'e' is short as in (except. The Ukrainian pronunciation is dNipro. Ukrainians from east Ukraine, including Keiv, speak mostly Russian. Ukrainians from west Ukraine speak mostly Ukrainian.
Dave
Thanks Doug for providing me with the info and pics on your rig. It really helped a lot and I appreciate it.
Huey
