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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — He wasn’t on the guest list, didn’t hold any security clearances, and was in Anchorage the week of President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin for one reason only: to run errands on his motorcycle.

But that didn’t stop a 65-year-old retired fire inspector from the Municipality of Anchorage, Mark Warren, from becoming the big winner of Putin’s visit. On the way home from one of his errands, Warren rode off with a free motorcycle — a $22,000 Ural Gear Up that he received from the Russian government.

“It went viral, it went crazy, and I have no idea why, because I’m just a super-duper normal guy,” Warren said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. “They just interviewed some old guy on a Ural, and for some reason they think it’s cool.”

Warren said he never saw it coming when a crew from Russia’s Channel One TV network pulled over for an interview on July 31. His neighbor had been selling a used Ural, but he was having problems keeping it on the road. The motorcycles can be hard to maintain in Alaska due to a lack of parts, Warren said, and demand frequently exceeds supply.

The short interview — in which Warren griped about his motorcycle and the lack of Russian influence in Alaska — became a sensation in Russia. Before he knew it, on the morning of Aug. 13, a Russian journalist called to let him know that “they’ve decided to give you a bike.”

At first, Warren thought it was a scam. But after Trump and Putin held a three-hour meeting on July 16 at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to discuss the war in Ukraine, and both left Alaska, he got another phone call. The motorcycle, it was said, was already in Anchorage.

The next day, Warren and his wife were directed to a local hotel. As he approached the curb, he found six men in the parking lot who he assumed were Russians. There, waiting for him, was a gleaming olive-green Ural Gear Up.

“I dropped my jaw,” Warren said. “I went, ‘You’ve got to be joking me.’”

The Russians, Warren said, didn’t ask much in return. He just had to be photographed with the motorcycle, do another interview, nd let them film a video clip of him on the bike. The Ural, he was told, would be driven to the Russian consulate. He did as he was told, circling the parking lot slowly as two reporters and another man from the Russian consulate climbed in the sidecar while a cameraman ran alongside his motorcycle.

Warren said he was nervous about accepting the gift from the Russian government. “The only reservation I had is that I might somehow be implicated in some nefarious Russian scheme,” Warren said. “I don’t want a bunch of haters coming after me thabecausegot a Russian motorcycle. … I don’t want this for my family.”

He said the only paperwork he signed was to accept the bike from the Russian Embassy. The document he was shown indicated the motorcycle was manufactured on Aug. 12, and as of that day, it was being delivered to the Russian consulate in Anchorage.

“The obvious thing here is that it rolled off the showroom floor and slid into a jet within probably 24 hours,” Warren said.

Warren said he is thankful for the gift, but still finds it hard to believe he got a free, brand-new motorcycle over a chance interview he didn’t even know went viral. Ural motorcycles were founded in western Siberia in 1941, but are now made in Petropavlovsk in Kazakhstan and sold in the United States by a team in Woodinville, Washington.

“I had one Ural, but it was a used one that I bought from my neighbor,” Warren said. “Mine is a fixer-upper.”

The odd story didn’t end there. Warren said the man in the sidecar during the video filmed of him on the Ural was Alexander Olembeev. His profile on LinkedIn indicated he had a role in Putin’s delegation during the Alaska trip.