When asked if I was excited about going to Russia I said I was more nervous than excited, envisaging a challenging trip. There is so much negativity in the western media about Pooty Pu and Russia. I was scared of getting bombed, attacked by hooligans, or just yelled at by angry anti-Westerners. None of this … Continue reading досвидания Россия (Goodbye Russia)
Peter The Great created St Petersburg out of a swamp 300 years ago. It was built by Swedish prisoners of war and Russian peasants, many who died during its construction. It was renamed Leningrad after Lenin’s death in 1924, and then returned to St Petersburg in 1991. Thanks to it’s many canals, established when draining … Continue reading St Pete’s
Our final day and in half in Samara was spent cruising the river, taking a very brisk swim in the Volga, eating more good food, and having a close encounter with real Russians. We also almost died on the way to the airport, but we won’t dwell on that. So the cruise. We went to … Continue reading Doing Samara
We caught an Uber to Samara Arena. The Uber driver took us along some dirt roads and dropped us out the back. The stadium looked like a giant space ship and is brand new, plonked into the middle of a construction site. Unfortunately our tickets had us sat in amongst the Danes. But we banded … Continue reading Samara – Australia v Denmark
We caught a very small plane to Samara. A small Russian plane. The weather was amazing. We survived. It was great and I’m thankful. We’re in Samara for four nights, the longest period of time Julian and I are spending in any one place. Samara (known as Kuybyshev from 1935 to 1991) it is on … Continue reading Samara
The taxi driver had been right about one thing. Our hotel was in the middle of nowhere. However, it wasn’t shit. Very weird, but not shit. Julian and I had studio which was massive, way more space that we needed. The bathroom included a shower cubicle which had multiple jet streams from the roof and … Continue reading Volgograd – Eng-a-land v Tunisia (the motherland calls)
At Volgograd train station we found the one taxi driver hanging around after midnight to take us to our hotel. We were squashed into the back of the car with another guy who’s accommodation was in the same direction. For the first 10 minutes of the journey the taxi driver used GoogleTranslate to berate the … Continue reading Welcome to Volgograd
22 hours on the train. Continue reading On the slow train from Kazan to Volgograd
Other than being forced to circle through turbulence for half an hour prior to landing, the flight to Kazan was fairly uneventful. From the airport we jumped on the free shuttle bus which took us an eternity to get us into town and from there we were on the hunt for somewhere we could watch … Continue reading Kazan – Australia v France (two guys, one girl, eleven cups)
Once Timmy arrived, and made his apologies, we introduced him to Moscow by taking him on our wee tour from the night before. He then took us on a wee tour of the apartment we didn’t get to sleep in the night before. To be honest we didn’t miss out on much. By then it … Continue reading The three amigos – Moscow to Kazan
Cold War Kids - Green, Gold and Red 