'There is no road to Kruglykino either within 174 kilometers of Yekaterinburg or anywhere in Sverdlovsk Region. Our Chevrolet TrailBlazer ad that mentions Yekaterinburg only uses fictional images that were composed out of various photographs of bad roads,’ Olga Mescheryakova, an account manager of Leo Bernet Agency, Moscow, said to UrBC.

Ms Mescheryakova believes this ad has no way of doing any harm to Sverdlovsk Region’s image, as the ad only features a remote country road and not a state highway.

The negative image of the region has been used by General Motors to promote its new Chevrolet TrailBlazer: the ad features a new car ‘capable of defying Russian roads’ and says that ‘when you are trying to reach your goal, trifles like bad roads don’t matter.’ In addition, there is a photograph of a very badly maintained country road with and a note: ‘The road to Kruglykino, 174 km of Yekaterinburg.’

Experts believe a massive advertising campaign might actually affect Sverdlovsk Region’s image badly.