Because their labor costs nothing. I took these minibuses a lot in Ukraine, Georgia (the country), Armenia, Russian Far East and Kazakhstan. The cars work and aren't entirely unsafe, but I bet none of them would pass western technical and emission inspection. They fix it themselves using scrap and they keep it running for 1M+ km.
Yeah last time I rode in a minibus (guagua (sp?)) was in the dominican republic. It was a 4 door sedan carrying ~9 people. I had shift the car into drive from park because the driver didn't want to reach across the lap of the female passenger who was also sitting in the drivers seat with him.
My memory was that the car had many warning lights on and turned off while we were driving. Somehow he was able to restart it without it being in park while we were coasting.
