If it's a Fiat it's a 124, but I'm pretty sure it's actually a Lada.

For reasons unknown, Fiat cut a deal with the Soviet Union to build an entire factory in the S.U., which built a city around it named after an Italian communist who died in the resistance, Togliattigrad. This was in the early '70's, I believe, and resulted in the Lada, which was basically a Russian-built Fiat 124 down to every nut and bolt. Fiat evolved into new models, but Lada just kept on building 124's forever (still do it, for all I know). A few were even imported into the US for a year or two in the late 70's/early '80's, I remember reading a Car & Driver review of one.

In the mid-90's, you could see Lada's all over central and eastern Europe. The one in the picture looks pretty beat up (typical for the region), and the number plate looks like a Slovak or Croatian plate. I'm sure Piotr saw his share of these growing up, along with E. German Trabants, Czech Skodas, and Romanian Dacias (a mid-70's Renault deal similar to the Lada/Fiat arrangement).