If you perused the manual, you found out why - it suggested you light a small fire under it to serve as an outback engine heater.
The Niva was, uh, an interesting car to own, but was amazing whenever conditions turned to shite. Nothing short of an anti tank mine would stop it.
It didn't like starting in the cold, and it didn't have battery enough to crank it for long. And failure-to-start was, um, not good.
The solution was a built-in electric heater and charger. Basically it was permanently plugged in so the battery was 100%,and the engine block was "not freezing cold" (I wouldn't go as far as "warm").
Had a push button start that fired up instantly, at the cost of an extra 3 seconds unplugging it it an emergency.
My point I guess is that you don't really have to heat the garage, you just need to warm the battery up a little.
Apparently some truck models over there have a built-in metal tray for this purpose.