Some cars leave a paper trail; the Chaika left a name, a year — 1959 — and a place in GAZ's list. What follows is what can be said with a source behind it.
Where it came from
The GAZ Chaika (Russian: Ча́йка), which means gull, is a luxury automobile from the Soviet Union made by GAZ (Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, translated as Gorky Automobile Plant (Russian: ГАЗ or Го́рьковский автомоби́льный заво́д)). The vehicle is one step down from the ZIL-111 limousine, and was produced in much larger numbers. Chaika production consisted of two generations, the GAZ-13 from 1959 to 1981 and the GAZ-14 from 1977 to 1988.
In context
Its family tree is legible: assembly was at Nizhny Novgorod. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Dodge Challenger, the Nissan Patrol, the Mini Mini — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the GAZ catalogue sit the GAZ 24-24 and the GAZ 46.
What it costs now
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Chaika has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.