Visiting Russia For The World Cup 2018

Never in a million year, I would have thought that I'd be visiting Russia.  It's a country I have heard much more than have been familiar with its culture.  I live in a Russian heavy neighborhood, but have never really been attracted to its food or anything Russian.   But then World Cup came along.  I also am not a soccer fan.  But growing up in Asia,  one will always be inevitable to somehow participate in this once every 4 years sport event.  And I have always wanted to take my father to see a World Cup match.  The fact that the World Cup is being hosted in Russia this year, I felt it should be the reason to go to Russia.  Plus I came to find out that Russia does not require visa as long as you have a valid World Cup match ticket, a fact that makes all those nuisances that are involved with getting visa go away.  (Nevertheless, buying a world cup ticket online at FIFA site ...well, it was not as easy as I thought).

I wasn't sure what I wanted to see or do in Russia.  All I know is that I wanted to see those Onion shaped dome buildings that is quitessential Russia.  Other than that I really am not sure what is there to see.   The fact that I was able to get World Cup tickets only for one of the semi-finals and that game is in a Russian town 4 miles away from Moscow really made it hard to plan.

But I knew that I should visit St. Petersburg as I have heard wonderful things about it.  And going to Russia without going to Moscow will be impossible.  So, I put St. Petersburg and Moscow on the agenda.  Since it's a busy season because of the World cup, I find the accommodation prices to be higher than usual.  Because of that I limited my trip to be just a week.

Before we went on trip, I did a lot of research on transportation options.  Given the news about Russia, we weren't really sure what to expect for tourists.  And I anticipated some language barrier.  Based on my research, I downloaded a couple of apps on my iPhone for Taxi services.  At this time of writing, Uber does not work in Russia.  Two Taxi apps that we used are Yandex and Gett.  Both worked great.  From my expereince, I found out that Gett works better in St. Petersbrug and Yandex in Moscow, but it may just be a fluke.

St. Petersburg 

As soon as we landed in St. Petersburg, we decided to use Gett to grab a taxi to our AirBnb instead of the cab.   It was 30 mins ride from the airport to our AirBnB and cost 1837.35 rub which was about $30.  For comparison, I had arranged a van service for my family & friend, a party of 5 who were traveling separately, with Lingo Taxi and it costed $70.

Our AirBnb in St. Petersburg was in a central location, right next to Palace Square and Hermitage Museum.  Not only most of the attractions are within walking distance, we were in the center of all.  The apartment was very spacious and luxury.   It had tall, big windows with ledges that faced down the main street, perfect for people watching.  The only complaint I had was that only one bathroom was available in a 3 bedroom apartment.   Considering a party of 7, it was a bit of a challenge but everything else made up for the lack of an extra bathroom.  Like most apartments in St. Petersburg, there are a lot of stairs which was also a problem when you have big luggages.

I have heard so many stories about St. Petersburg being a very modern and nice city but I did not know the truth of those stories until the next morning.   After a good night rest, the next morning was all business and sightseeing.  We had to get this laminated ID cards called Fan ID to attend World Cup matches.  All of us got ours before the trip except my dad's.  So, I had to take my father to go pick up his Fan ID at a distribution center.  Being early morning, the city was quiet but its silence made its charm and beauty louder.  The buildings, the streets, the small parks, the canals, the bridges -- I did not expect St. Petersburg to give me the same feelings I had when I was walking through the streets of Paris.  But it did.

First tourist attraction we saw was the Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood.  Unfortunately, there was some maintenance being done on the church, therefore some part of the church was covered up, which makes it look unpretty in photos.  

This is the place where Empire Alexander II was assassinated and his son Alexander III built the church in memory of his father.   If you do not know who those Empires are and would like to learn more about Russian history,  I'd highly recommend this documentary by BBC called Empire of the Tsar, available on Netflix.   Or if you are like me who just likes to read or watch documentaries about a country before visiting, this documentary is entertaining and informational enough not to make you fall asleep.  


Since we were traveling with a large group of people, I didn't really plan to see much attractions.  My family was never keen on visiting museums.  So, I knew we would be skipping the museums.  Therefore we did not go State Hermitage Museum or any palace.  The other tourist attractions we did was visiting St. Issac Cathedral, which is a 5 mins walk away from our AirBnb.  My Russian friend really recommended its observation deck and I must say it was well worth the climb.

As you can tell from the black cloud in the picture, the weather was really not favorable during our stay in St. Petersburg.

View of St. Petersburg from the top of St. Issac Cathedral

The next day was rest day, especially after my friend sprained her ankle on a side walk.  As she's resting to recuperate, we decided to just stay local and walk around.  We walked from our AirBnb near Palace Square, along Nevsky Avenue, all the way to Galleria Mall near Moscow train station.  It was also the day we were introduced to Bliny and Russia fast food place called Teremok and fell in love their sweet pancakes.  I'm sure the trick is the butter, nevertheless, we couldn't stop eating it.

Our meal at Teremok -- From Left to Right, Bucketwheat rice, Savory Bliny, Pelmeni aka Russia dumblings

The next day was reserved for a visit to Peterhof. Again the weather was not favorable.  We took hydrofoil from one of the piers near our AirBnb.  It was definitely packed with tourists, mostly Chinese tourists.  The trip to Peterhof on the ferry was about 45 mins.  After landing, there was a crowd of people waiting to buy the tickets.  The ticket system was a bit weird, because you can only buy the ticket to the garden, not for other places in the palace.  Since we are not keen on seeing the opulance of the palace, we were ok with it.  But then again, there was no other options.  Also, their credit card machines were not working that day, luckily my family exchanged money at airport and we were able to buy tickets.  Can you image traveling that far and not able to go in because they did not take credit card?

The famous fountains at Peterhof

After spending about 1 hour taking pictures, the weather decided to turn against us and it started pouring.  We decided to just head back to the city as we were definitely not in a mood to be waiting in line to see the palace.  Later that day, we also went and saw Sleeping beauty ballet at the Mariinsky theater.   And that's also when we experienced first hand about Russian driving and its traffic.   The ballet was nice but I don't think ballet is my cup of tea.



After the ballet, some of us decided to walk back from the theater to AirBnb.  The air was crisp and fresh, the sun light was still there ( the sun set at 10pm and rises at 2pm during our visit).  The weather and company made it a most pleasurable walk.  Again, I wish we had stay longer in St. Petersburg and I wished I could have been just doing nothing, but walking around in the city.

Given that it's World Cup week, there were a lot of tourists walking around in team's jerseys.  During our short stay, there was a match in which Russian won.  Russian people came out and celebrated.  It was a very nice experience to be in the middle of the actions.

We stayed in St. Petersburg for only 4 days and I wished we could have stayed longer. and I will always have a place in my heart for this city nicknamed "Venice of the North".  

Moscow

While St. Petersburg was unique, Moscow was everything I expected about Russia.  The Europeaness that I witnessed in St. Petersburg was gone.  Instead it was a city, felt very similar to New York.  It was alive, noisy, dirty and everything and everyone was in constant movement.

In Moscow, we decided to stay in a hotel because we had to travel to this town called Nizhny Novogard for our game.  So, instead of lurking around our luggages, I figure it's better to leave behind at the hotel which we will come back to the next day.

Very long elevator inside Moscow Metro Station

We went to Arabat street on our first day in Moscow.  I heard so much about Moscow's Metro.  It did not disappoint me.   The trains' frequencies were very good probably better than some of the trains in New York.  It was also cheaper than New York but most trains are old and does not have air conditioning.  I read that there was a lot of walking involved in metro stations and it was definitely true.   But most stations were clean and nice and had signage, a fact that is superior to NYC's train stations.

My impression of Arabat street was it was really nothing special.  But if you were looking to buy souvenir, this is probably the place to do, unless you know some other hidden spot around Moscow.  It just had a huge concentration of souvenir stores.  Prices were not cheaper but if you can make use of your negotiation skills, you'd probably be able to get a few stuffs.   We had dinner at a Turkish place called Mesopotima and my family liked the food.

The next day we visited the famous Kremlin and the Red Square.  It was madness like Time Square.  Full of people.  I wanted to see Lenin Mausoleum, but the line was unbelievably long.  I think just getting a shot of the famous St. Basil Cathedral was well worth this trip.  After taking photos to our hearts' content, we decided to go to GUM shopping center, which is right next to the Red Square and took a rest.  My friend was in search of the famous GUM ice cream as told by her cousin.  But to me, it was just another ice cream.  While my family was shopping, me and my dad just sat outside and watched people.


Funny story -- as my dad and I were sitting on a bench outside, an old guy and a boy came over.  The old man was making hand gestures which made me believe that he wanted the little boy ( probably his grandson) to sit with us.  So I thought oh, maybe he just needed a seat...but, no, as the boy squeezed in between me and my dad, the old man took out a camera and took a picture of us.  It was the most bizarre thing.  I don't know why...of all the countries that I have visited, we got asked the most in Moscow about our ethnicity and where we are from.  Considering that Russia is very close to most Asian countries, I expected people to be more culturally aware.

We stayed in Courtyard by Marriott Moscow Paveletskaya Hotel, which is not really in the center near attractions.  But the hotel is right next to the metro which takes us to the famous Red Square in 15 minutes.  Since we went during the World Cup, accommodation prices were sky high. nevertheless, it was a clean, modern hotel and rates seem to be pretty reasonable during off season.  

After we came back from our match in Nizhny Novgorod, we had an extra night in Moscow.  That evening, there was a match between Russia and Croatia, which we watched at a pub near the Red Square.  It was very fun and there was a lot of Russian people cheering for their country.  Energy was high and the game was very good with Russia and Croatia going into penalty kick.  Unfortunately, Russia lost to Croatia and hence got kicked out of the final. 

Nizhny Novgorod

We would not have visited this charming little city situated at the intersection of Volga River and Oka River if not for the football match.  The town was definitely transformed and dressed up for the big event.  Our hotel was in the town center which was good because we were in the center of all the actions, but also bad because taxis cannot leave us exactly in front of the hotel due to road closures.  So we ended up having to walk down the historic area to get to the hotel. The hotel itself was nothing special, just a clean place to sleep for the night.

We had less than 24 hours in Nizhny and majority of the time were spent on getting to the stadium for the match.  They provided free shuttle services to the stadium, which was nice, but the walks from hotel to shuttle pick up points and drop off points to get to the stadium was longer than I'd like it to be.  I wished we had more time to explore Nizhny as there were a few places that I'd like to have visited.  But we were all pretty tired from the 4 hrs train ride and getting around for the match so we had little energy to explore around the town. 


Epilogue

It was a short and sweet trip for personal reasons.  It is also very tiring and expensive trip.  But it was all worth it.  I don't know when I'll get a chance to go back to Russia.  I'd like to because I felt like I haven't seen enough.  I'd definitely like to walk around St. Petersburg and just absorb all its beauty.  I'd like to see different parts of Moscow and explore more food places.  (We did have some pretty nice meal in Moscow).  I'd also like to have visited eastern part of Russia.  One of my alternate plans was actually take Trans-Siberian Railway through Mongolia and into Beijing.  But obviously that did not happen because of time constraint.  Russia is big and I think I just saw the tip of the iceberg.  I don't know when I'll get a chance to go back, but I'd like to go back there one day.