White nights of St. Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is the second most important city of Russia after Moscow. Once the capital of Soviet Union, this city endured most hardship during World War II. The strongest industrial belt in Russia and home of president Vladimir Putin, Saint Petersburg is also an easy-going city for the World Cup fans.

Here you will find a few more people speaking English. We were actually taken by surprise when a young Russian appeared in a road-side fresh fruit shop, form where we were buying cherry. While we were struggling to convince the vendor about how much we wanted to buy, the youth in his 20s said: “Allow me to act as an interpreter”. A saviour indeed!

When I was having video conversation with my five-year-old daughter, she made an interesting observation. “It's night here. Why it's daylight over there?” It was actually 9:00pm in Saint Petersburg. I told her that night will fall soon here. But the reality is different in this part of the world. Pitch black dark sky is not something you can have during summer here. It always gives you an impression of the wee hours before dawn.

We did not apply for match ticket to the Russia-Egypt game. So, when we made a belated request for media ticket at the ticket distribution desk, we thought the plea would be outright rejected. But to our surprise, a match ticket was granted. Not only that, a proper desk with a TV set showing the game live was also allocated. The trouble-shooting was a walk all the way to the top row of the top tier to have a seat. Still, it was like a recognition after watching the two games, for which we made prior requests, sitting like spectators with no workstation in place. This is the World Cup and understandably it is impossible for any venue to accommodate more than 10,000 journalists together. But sometimes you can consider yourself extremely lucky.