Weather

The average temperature in Moscow is 20°-24°C now. At night, it plunges to about 12°C. The weather apps are fairly accurate. The temperature is similar across central Russia where the matches are being played.
Look up: holiday-weather.com

Visa

If you have a match ticket, you don’t need a visa. You need to apply for a fan ID or a personalised spectator’s card at fan-id.ru. Take a printout and show at the immigration counter. On reaching Russia, you get the original from any Fan ID Distribution Centre. You get a grace period of 10 days to stay in Russia before and after the match for which you have a ticket. 

If you do not have a ticket to a match and just want to soak in the atmosphere, you have to apply for the visa at Gorky Sadan or seek an appointment at the consulate. Visa takes four to 10 working days. An urgent visa takes one to three days. 
Look up: www.kolkata.mid.ru

Local transport

Uber operates in Russia. You can also download the Yandex app and use their cabs. There are other radio taxi operators too. The Metro network is extensive.

Emergency Save the Indian embassy number (+79652773414 for weekends and after office hours; +74957837535 for weekdays). Also, 103 is for general ambulance, 102 for police and 112 for general emergency.

Things to do in Moscow 

Visit 

Kremlin: The fortified citadel of Moscow — a complex of palaces, cathedrals, towers and museums, including the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Ivan the Great Bell Tower. 

Saint Basil’s Cathedral: Moscow’s most recognisable architectural symbol, this 16th-century building is now a museum.

Tretyakov Gallery: Across the Moskva river from the Kremlin, the gallery houses an impressive collection of Russian art with over 1.3 lakh exhibits.

Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts: With its roughly seven lakh exhibits, it is the place to be if you’re an art aficionado.

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour: Adjacent to the Pushkin Museum stands this 103m-high edifice, the world’s tallest Eastern Orthodox church.

Novodevichy Convent: The Cathedral of Our Lady of Smolensk and the cemetery here are where the likes of writers Anton Chekhov and Nikolai Gogol, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, and composer Sergei Prokofiev are buried.

Shop at

GUM: a traditional departmental store over a century old at Red Square. 

Walk around

Arbat: one of the oldest surviving streets of Moscow, now only for pedestrians. 

All the other venues of World Cup matches are attractive tourist spots. St. Petersburg is a must-visit.

Eat 

Borscht (soup), Pelmeni (dumplings), Pirozhki (baked or fried bun with a variety of fillings, beef to mushroom, salmon to oatmeal) and Khachapuri (cheese-filled bread). Also try the Russian pizza, steak, Salad Olivier (Russian potato salad). Russian food has some French influence, a prime example being Chicken and Mushroom Julienne. And, of course, there is Bliny, a pancake. Wash it down with Kvass, a drink made from rye bread, or Tarkhun, a  bright green sip of tarragon leaves.

Based on information provided by the consulate general of the Russian Federation in Calcutta 

Don’t have a ticket? Drop in at a Fan Fest

Fan fests are where football fans gather in large numbers to catch the games on big screens in public places. What started as a local initiative in South Korea during the 2002 edition has become an add-on official FIFA event. FIFA Fan Fests in Germany, South Africa and Brazil were tremendously successful, and this time Russia would be hoping to outdo them.

In Moscow, the Fan Fests will be held in Vorobyovy Gory aka Sparrow Hills, a green part of town. With the imposing Moscow State University building (in picture above) on one side and the Luzhniki Stadium less than 2km as the crow flies on the other, it’s a brilliant setting to enjoy the matches with around 25,000 people. There’ll be live music, souvenirs to pick for your friends back home, and a chance to meet 1998 World Cup winner Marcel Desailly, who is one of the 2018 Fan Fest ambassadors.

If you’re planning to visit St. Petersburg but don’t have tickets to any of the matches there, catch the Fan Fest at Konyushennaya Square. In fact, you’ll find a Fan Fest at each of the 11 cities hosting the tournament.

‘We are ready to welcome you,’ says a Moscow resident 

FIFA World Cup 2018 will arrive in Russia in just a few days. The games will be held in 11 cities but Moscow is the major place. We, its residents, are eagerly waiting for the events to start.

It is over a year since I left Calcutta after finishing my tenure as the consul general of the Russian Federation there. Most of this time I have been staying in Moscow, where our apartment is in the central part of the city within 20 minutes walking distance from the Kremlin. So, whenever I go out, I can see how beautiful Moscow is becoming day by day. 

There are installations devoted to football on many city squares and posters in the streets. And it does not apply to central Moscow only. The suburban residential districts also have got their share of beautification. I liked the idea of graffiti on blank walls of buildings with the general topic of the FIFA World Cup history and its symbolic events. They look very attractive. 

In 2017 National Geographic placed Moscow among seven leading world tourist destinations. And it is well-deserved. Moscow has totally reconstructed two football stadiums to make them top class. One is Luzhniki, which can now hold 81,000 visitors, and the second one is Spartak. To facilitate access to these venues, the traffic system has been modified on the neighbouring streets and some of them have already been closed for cars with the only exception made for residents of those districts. Moscow’s rapid transport system has been adopted so as to provide the easiest way to reach the stadiums by public transport for spectators. 
 

The Moscow government has taken a decision to make public transport free for football fans on the days when the games are held. The navigation system in Moscow metro and announcements in English leave no chance for foreign guests to lose their way. An unprecedented thing is that spectators will also be provided free railway travel to/from other hosting cities to attend games. 

Moscow has trained about 5,000 volunteers. They will meet the guests at the airports and railway stations, assist them during different events and tours. 

Special attention is given to security arrangements. Tourist Policemen speak English (according to the information, some of them also speak German, French, Spanish or even Chinese!) and can be distinguished by a special arm band.

A call centre and tourist information centres will provide guests with information on places of interest in the city, transport infrastructure and how to act in case of an emergency. Their personnel master foreign languages. City transport authorities say that even ticket inspectors and taxi drivers will be provided phrase-books to enable them to communicate with foreigners.

I would advise those who are planning to visit Russia for FIFA World Cup 2018 to visit the website welcome2018.com, where they will find complete information on Moscow and other hosting cities. It has an English version.

Irina Bashkirova is the immediate past consul-general of the Russian Federation in Calcutta