‘The atmosphere has spread throughout the entire country’
ANZHELIKA Voskanyan (44) is a language teacher and interpreter from St Petersburg. She has lived in Northern Ireland for 12 years with her husband, a Dublin-born solicitor, and their two daughters who are 11 and 14. The couple lived in Bosnia before moving here, when her husband got a job with a local firm.
“Northern Ireland is a really lovely place,” she says.
“It took me a while to get used to it but once you get used to it you find the people are extremely friendly.
“Russia has changed a lot since I left in my 20s. I just wanted to be a teacher and have a decent standard of living and I taught in university in Russia.
“At the time it wasn’t a great salary and it wouldn’t cover your daily needs, never mind any luxuries.
“But I go back home every year and I would meet up with old colleagues and I know from talking to them that things have really improved.”
Anzhelika has just returned from a visit home, where she says the World Cup has brought a real vitality to the streets of Russia.
Indeed, she got a chance to meet and talk with fans from all over the world when she was forced to spend 48 hours in Moscow Airport when her flight was cancelled.
“I was stuck in Moscow Airport for two days when British Airways cancelled our flight to Heathrow twice. I was sitting with football fans and the impression I got was that they really enjoyed being in Russia.
“It was a strange experience because after two days with the same people it felt like we were all friends and knew each other.
“People would be walking past you and would say hello as if they knew you.”
Anzhelika is from Krasnodar, a city in southern Russia which has its own Russian Premier League football team FC Krasnodar. Her mother was in charge of the club’s grounds and so she spent a lot of her childhood at the stadium.
She shares her mother’s affection for the game, saying: “I like football although I don’t support any particular football team. Mum worked as grounds manager all her life in our local football stadium and I grew up there. I was very used to being in a big stadium.
“Even though our city didn’t host any of the matches, the atmosphere has reached there too.
“My city would have very good connections with other cities so when you came out of the airport there were loads of stalls manned by volunteers issuing so-called ‘fan passports’. These were passes given by the government to all fans so that they could use public transport for free.
“From what I could see everything was very well organised. Everywhere there was this colourful, lovely atmosphere.
“If you think of all the Russian stereotypes, they were there in the streets — people dressed as Russian dolls and people singing and it was just pure entertainment.
“A question Russian people are often asked, and it is a bit of a joke in Russia, is do we really have bears on the street, and while I was there last week someone actually put a circus bear in a car and drove it along the street, which was rather funny.”
Naturally, Anzhelika is rooting for her home nation and admits to being surprised that Russia has done so well thus far, winning two of the three group games and qualifying for the next round.
She adds: “Winning their second game was definitely a feather in their cap. I didn’t expect them to do so well. I hope they get to the quarter finals, that would be really good.”