From Russia with love!

It feels like only yesterday that we purchased our first tickets for the FIFA World Cup in Saransk! Yes exactly, where is Saransk was my thought too?

You can read out it all here at From Russia with love well sort of …

Getting World Cup Tickets:

It was not that easy getting tickets in the first round ticket allocations. Which was why we ended up in Saransk, not knowing which teams were playing. We found out later that it was Denmark vs Peru. The boys were pleased to be able to see Denmark, although they had to keep this quiet when they finally arrived as most of the fans were from Peru!

Each ticket was personalised and so we had to transfer the ticket into my son’s name. Even so, the ticket was still issued in my name and we were grateful when the turnstile clicked open to let him in. This was after all his 21st birthday present!

World Cup Fan ID

Everyone with tickets to the World Cup needed a personal FAN ID which had to match your tickets. The Fan ID also acts as your Entry Visa into Russia. Our Fan ID and tickets took forever to arrive in Australia and given the hectic travel schedules we were relieved to have tickets and Fan ID’s just in time for our departure.

Where is Saransk?

It turns out that Saransk is 600 km out of Moscow and every Russian we have met was surprised that it was chosen as a venue too.

It has been great for Russia to showcase different cities to the world but we can’t help thinking the only reason that we got tickets to Saransk was that everyone else was saying “where’s that?”

What about accommodation?

I think for me it was the lack of choice of accommodation that drove me into making the decision not to attend the Saransk match. This entire World Cup has been friggin’ expensive. We certainly had no idea quite how much it would cost on buying those first two Saransk tickets.

At the time we were trying to find a triple room in Saransk which made it hard. Every website you looked at showed no accommodation available over match days. This was because FIFA had taken most of the hotel allocations. The only way to get access to this, was to be a registered ticket owner and to request a special code.

We found the FIFA accommodation team very helpful but there was just not much choice!

The boys ended up in the Biathlon Complex hotel. It appears this was a winter sports school in the middle of the woods, and as such, the cross country and shooting school were quite rightly out of town. They walked 7kms to reach the stadium on match day!

Having said that after the crazy prices quoted elsewhere in any World Cup city they were happily rewarded with a 40 Euro a night price for a triple room – bargain!

Accommodation in Moscow was even more of a nightmare, the price hike unbelievable. The lucky ones were those fans who got into early with AIrbnb options. We have since heard that many Moscovites have chosen to take the money and leave town.

The political situation:

We had kind of committed by the time the political situation deteriorated. In the UK the Guardian newspaper shows how the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Salisbury case went from Local news to International incident, read more here.

We found all the countries we turn to for travel advice were issuing warnings against attending:

The Aussie’s said: If you don’t need to travel to Russia at the moment then think twice, think three times, about doing it

The Brits talked of possible team boycott and for fans to be aware of possible racial tensions. The American’s said don’t look to us for help we’ve just expelled 60 Russian diplomats and we can’t help you…

But sport is sport, and not politics and apart from financially being in too deep, we wanted to see for ourselves what Russia was like.

All the Russians we have met in our travels seem lovely people, they talk about being worried about the threat of the crazy soccer hooligans coming into their country!

The fun:

By the time I arrived at London Heathrow, England had just won their first match. The mood of the nation had shifted thanks to Saint Harry the Captain, from a ‘we’re not really boovered about it, we’re only sending a young team anyway and certainly not, no Prince William’. To a:

‘Woah, we won, we won!’

It was like a party in the check-in line for our Aeroflot flight, I might be a frequent flyer but not with Aeroflot and for once a long check-in line was great fun. It feels like I’m the only one without a team shirt. Before long I’ve made friends with the Mexican’s and soon I’ve been given a hat for a photo and I’ve promised them my undying support!

I love the two loud, funny Irish chaps telling everyone that they going even without an Irish team to cheer for, because Boris Johnson told them not to!

The travel:

Our family ended up flying on different flights to rendezvous in Moscow. We were all boooked on Aeroflot, one of those airlines you remembered traveling on thirty years ago and said you never would again.

A message from Mr Wren said he was stuck in the very last row, next to the toilets (arghhhh yes Communism is a great leveler, Mr Wren, you’re President who?) and that the air hostesses were scary.  Sure there is a big difference between the Russian crew and our gentle, elegant and gentile Thai Airways crew.

My son, at 6 foot 3″ sends a text saying ‘What the…. you’ve booked me into the middle of the middle seat????? ‘

‘Yep shut up son,

we’ll have no complaints now about anything in Russia,

it will all be just fine. Remember Salisbury’.

Scary or not scary, I’m up to see the Air Hostess within 5 minutes of the fasten seat belts being turned off to say:

‘Excuse me Miss, but some blokes wee’d all over the toilet seat’, 

She gives me a look somewhere between a ‘if you think I’m going to deal with it’ and a ‘what do you expect  – you’re going to the World Cup’ stare and I’m off without complaining further to find a cleaner loo…

My food arrives, apparently, I’ve ordered a vegetarian meal, I do that on whim, but am refused a request to change to a bog-standard meal.

I draw the line at my salad which actually has mould on it. Scary or not, I hand it back to the Air Hostess and try to master a ‘don’t try and poison me’ frown.

She replies ‘is there anything else I can get you?’

‘Yes, a meal with loads of meat in it and some clean toilets’,

I reply.

Score: One goal to me 🙂

Come back soon to join me at my first match, yes I’m impressed by the organisation. Well done Russia!