F rom Russia, with love...
Contrary to expectations, the 2018 World Cup hosts served up a delightful spectacle for everybody to savour
It was close to 2 am on the 21st of June when I landed at the Nizhny Novgorod airport. After the 11 days in Moscow, this was my first World Cup related trip outside the national capital of Russia and having booked a homestay a few miles away from the city, I was preparing for a long ride to my place of stay.
The owner of the lodgings had promised to arrange for a pick-up but when I saw Sveta and Aleksandr, the owners themselves, drive over an hour to the airport to receive me and my friend – another journalist from India – I was pleasantly surprised.
For the next few days, Aleksandr’s parents, Mariya and Aleksandr senior, a former soldier in the Soviet army, made sure we felt at home in Akademika Vavilova, around 20 kms from the city centre.
The fact that we were Indians also meant that it didn’t take long for us to develop a close bond with the two pensioners because of their interest in Bollywood. Mariya, in particular, hadn’t watched Indian movies since her younger days. Were Raj Kapoor’s grandchildren working in movies too, she asked. Thanks to online translation apps, our conversations went smoothly. When we showed her pictures of Ranbir Kapoor, she curiously scrolled down the Google image gallery.
Mariya, whose culinary skills were extraordinary, would prepare, among others, pelmeni (dumplings) and compote (fruit syrup) for us every day. Our hosts didn’t charge a penny for the food or the drop to the airport.
The warmth and hospitality wasn’t limited to Nizhny Novgorod alone.
This was in stark contrast to what I had been expecting prior to travelling from New Delhi for the World Cup. The Indian media’s presence in post-Soviet Union Russia isn’t all that vibrant and that has meant that most of our information about the country has come from the media outlets in the western world.
Stories of hooliganism, racism, homophobia, particularly in Russian football – stories we generally consume from the English or the American media – had created an image of a xenophobic, conservative country.
It didn’t take too long to for our fears to be dispelled. As Russia opened itself to the rest of the world, people from all over the globe found themselves in a place which was more than accommodating.
Not only were incidents of hooliganism completely absent but English fans, in particular, who had been warned of being sitting ducks in Russia, gave glowing reviews of the country.
It seemed as if the Russians had been making an extra effort to compensate for a violent incident involving the English in Marseille at Euro 2016. The police presence, significant in the opening weeks, started diminishing as the days passed. “We are not present but we have our eyes everywhere,” a policewoman joked in Moscow when asked about
the same a day after the EnglandCroatia semi-final. The diversity in major cities in Russia was also contrary to my expectations.
Instances of monkey chants at Russian football grounds in the past had raised fears of incidents of racism at the World Cup as well, but the diversity in Moscow’s daily life made me wonder if racism was indeed as pervasive as many of us had been made to believe prior to the tournament. This is not to say that Russia is some wonderland misrepresented in the media.
As one young volunteer in Nizhny Novgorod put it, “What you are seeing is a different Russia. We are not used to so many people and we have our problems in everyday life. ”
University students in the city had a few weeks chopped off from their curriculum because of the World Cup, she explained. Such strong-arm tactics were probably not unexpected in
Russia but the level of efficiency showed during the
World Cup meant that conversations about freedom of expression, workers’ rights and alleged corruption took a backseat.
Moreover, in spite of the heightened focus on Vladimir Putin from the foreign press, the president’s presence - and indeed, that of other politicians - during the World Cup remained limited.
This was in stark contrast to how politicians in India used the U-17 World Cup last year for better visibility.
Putin couldn’t be seen in any promotional banner and his direct involvement was largely confined to statements after matches involving Russia, apart from attending the opening and final games. Perhaps he didn’t need the promotion. Midway through the tournament, when local Kazan authorities hosted a media dinner, there was no politician to be seen. It seemed a bit odd given how it would have been the opposite in India. Nevertheless, on our last day in Russia, our driver Illior, who hailed from Kyrgyzstan, decided to remind us once again of Bollywood’s popularity in the region – albeit fading – as he played Hindi songs one after another in his music system. Like most of the previous 37 days of my stay, Russia felt like home.