WORLD CUP CLIMAX
The final week in Russia
Katya, a 20-year-old student in the Russian capital, came across a young Mexican engineer named Axel.
The pair met in a crowded Moscow bar halfway through the World Cup, when Axel’s national team Mexico was still harbouring of winning the World Cup. “The first thing I noticed was how he looked different from anyone I’ve met,” says Katya, who, like others in this story, only gave her first name.
Axel, 25, had never been to Russia before. “I was scared my dark skin would get me into trouble.” He beams at his new girlfriend. “But it’s been great. I don’t feel like I am in Russia.”
“Foreigners are kind,” Katya says. “Not like our men.”
Axel playfully pokes the economics student in her ribs. “It’s true,” Katya squeals.
The two communicate in halting English, though Axel has a better command. Now Katya wants to learn Spanish. The lovebirds are planning a foreign trip — Katya’s first — after Axel heads home in a week’s time.
The couple are one of scores to have formed between a Russian and a foreigner during the world’s largest sporting event, which has seen almost three million international visitors flood the country. Russian mobile operators detected an 11-fold surge in the use of the Tinder dating app since the tournament began, and some embassies, notably Tunisia, are grappling with marriage requests, from their own citizens as well as Russian women.
Droves of ethnically diverse soccer fans have brought new languages, music and dance moves to the streets of Moscow, spurring unprecedented outdoor dance parties and injecting the hot summer air with a dose of spontaneity and euphoria. Russians are not used to seeing so many foreigners from so many places, especially in their own country.
But beyond the frenzied mix of hormones and alcohol is an intense curiosity in the outside world, one that noisily landed three weeks ago on the doorsteps of Russians, unfiltered and free from the manacles of politics.
The last four years have seen a period of political isolation as ties between Russia and the West sunk to Cold War lows.
At home, the Russian government and state-run media cultivate an image of Fortress Russia, a besieged country surrounded by adversaries.
It is perhaps of little wonder that Russia’s World Cup is increasingly being compared to the 1957 Youth Festival in Moscow, when the Soviet Union saw a flux of foreigners for the first time, and embraced the world. The fete, part of Nikita Khrushchev’s thaw after years of Stalinist repression, was a turning point in Soviet history.
“Then, as now, it was necessary to open up the country, to show it to the world,” said lawmaker Svetlana Zhurova.
Accounts of the 1957 festival bear a striking resemblance to the World Cup, down to the hanging of street lights in pedestrian areas to better illuminate the faces of revellers. Afterward, biracial children were born to Russian women, and called, somewhat derisively, “festival children.”
“Maybe we’ll see those sorts of surprises after this championship,” Zhurova says, grinning. “The romantic relationships, the friendships, all of this is positive. (The foreigners) are here for such a short amount of time, but the impact is huge.”
Not all memorable interactions have involved romance. The Takie Dela journal and charity detailed the case of a 73-year-old retired French teacher in the southern city of Rostov, who fed some apples to Swiss fans from her balcony after their team played. The next night, she ventured out with them until the early hours, elated to speak French again and donning a dress she had not worn since she was a young woman.