All Whites' Dead End Road To Russia 2018

Yeah I realised I was stereotyping football supporters, perhaps racily when I wrote that. What part of the Caucasus is your family from? I went snowbording in Dombay which is in Karrachay-Cherkessia I also hung out in Stavropol-Krai a bit.

Just don't promote any homosexual propaganda and you'll be fine.

Probably the most important thing is to learn the Cyrilic alphabet and basic pronunciation. It isn't hard but it will help to be able to read signs if your looking for something. 

Always carry your paperwork with you. 

Don't be intimidated by people yelling all the time - it's normal, people yell at each other about how cute their child is, etc. 

Don't fall for people trying to exchange money in the street, etc. But also don't worry about the reputation of the place, people are incredibly friendly to strangers. If you're eating in a restaurant and someone realises your a foreigner don't be surprised if your table is suddenly full of people and a couple of open bottles of vodka. People are incredibly hospitable to strangers (especially out side of Moscow which includes Saint Petersberg), they'll often go out of their way to help you, invite you to their place for dinner, drive you out to some interesting land mark, help you buy tickets, etc. Although, with that in mind, avoid the ultras, and skin heads, etc.

Go to St Petersberg and checkout Peterhof, Catherine's Palace, the Hermitage, and the Kremlin there, etc. In Moscow go to the Kremlin, go to some of the beautiful churches around (including St. Basils), ride around on the Metro for a day, it's beautiful in places.

Don't worry about police, bribes, corruption, etc. It doesn't happen in the cities, also don't worry too much about crime or violence, the two big cities are as safe as any other city of the same size. Just try not to stand out.

To get a visa you either go through a tourism company, get an invitation from your hotel (which you need to prepay for), or get an invite (where the person who invites you needs to go through a background check, and they need to prove that they have the finances to support you). You can get the invites from less legitimate means which provide the hotel invites without you paying for them. Because of this don't be surprised if the Russian embassy wants to get copies of your bank account to prove that you have paid what you claim to have. Also make sure you give yourself six months to get a visa, its bueracratic. 

If you travel outside of the beaten track you have to go to the police station or post office and sign in as a foreigner in town, and also sign out when you leave.

Any chance of a yellow fever tour to Russia? Who's keen

Yellow army v Red army?

Well they got that wrong, cos you're obviously white. 

Phoenix aren't playing so it would be White Noise wouldn't it?

Mr P. D. Antic

Is that not the Capital Cup pre season fixture?

That whole calling people as far away as Scandinavia Caucasian is odd as they have quite different characteristics. But the main reason why kiwi's would stand out in the Caucasus is that we don't tend to have that really thick black beard which is common in Islamic countries. 

I've spent a good chunk of time in the Caucasus though, including being only a couple of hundred metres away from Georgia when the war was on which was a bit harrowing, and haven't had any problems. But it's one of the only places where you probably want to make sure they don't know your slavic, although the NZ embassy was pretty upset with us for going and said that if we were kidnapped by terrorists the NZ government wouldn't do anything to help.

Sochi is of course in the Caucasus as well, but it's a different boardgame. I haven't been to the city but obviously with the Winter Olympics, football, and F1 it's well policed and safe.

The other thing I thought of for people traveling to Russia is don't be afraid of the local cuisine, Russian cuisine has a bad reputation of being bland, and I don't like a lot of the formal stuff (caviar, aspic, that sort of thing) but a lot of the food is influenced by the extent of the old empire. Russian fast food is great. Shishlicks are like shish kebabs and are cooked in a special coal fire in vineger and wine. Kasha are porridge like things. Blini's are stuffed pancakes. Pelmeni are dumplings. You can get stuffed potatoes and european style hotdogs. Of course there are McDonalds, Hesburger, and KFC but the street food and fast food is great and healthy.

Also be prepared for a surprise if you eat old favorites, everything is modified to fit the Russian taste more than foods are modified for the Kiwi pallet here. I had Spaghetti Bolognaise from an Italian restaurant in St Petersberg and it didn't have any tomato in the sauce. I had Chinese literally 50 metres away from the border with China and it was pretty much Russian cuisine. If you want a mild curry in Moscow you ask for it to be extra hot. A good chain if you don't want to try a random place is my-my (pronounced moo moo) which is buffet style dining but very cheap and of a very high quality. In Russia you pay for food by the gram in restaurants rather than fixed price (even when they are fixed price the menu will tell you how many grams it is) so you pile up your plate, they weigh it, and you pay. Also a lot of places outside of the CBD don't have any signage, if your in the suburbs you kind of just have to watch what buildings people are walking in and out of and guess that they are shops, restaurants, etc. Also if a very attractive girl comes up to you in a bar starts flirting with you, before telling you you'd look really cool if you were smoking ignore her, she works for the cigarette companies.

If your traveling between the venues (I think it's just in Sochi, Moscow, and St Petersberg?) a good way to travel is to take the sleeper train. You leave from the centre of a city, wake up in the centre of another city and sleep on the way, the landscape in Russia is very flat and very large, and it's not unusual to stare out the window at unbroken forest for several hours. They have restaurant cars, bars, etc. Coupe is where you share a locked room with four people, Plaskart is like a backpackers with open bunks, people share food, booze, and stories and have a great time there.  You get to know interesting people and learn the unique things to do. You can definitely take an overnight train from St Petersberg to Moscow, I don't know about Sochi. You can take an overnight train to the city of Rostov on Don or Mineral Waters and then catch a bus but I'm sure they put in lines down there for the Olympics.

Also Moscow is a crazy place, officially its around ten million people but unofficially it's above fifteen million and is by far the biggest city in Europe and is very wealthy, the average wage in Moscow is higher than Wellington or London.  Because of the huge discrepency between the European part of Russia and the rest there are internal travel restrictions as they struggle to keep Siberia populated and a lot of Russians live and work in Moscow illegally. It has the best and worst of things in the world and huge excesses. Enjoy the old city hang out on Stary Abart, etc. But also go and checkout the nightlife - it's insane.

And do not start a Pussy Riot

It was really strange that at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony they had Tatu playing which are a pop duo that made their name by being a Lesbian act.

Things have gotten tougher since I was there last, but a couple of years ago people were definitely openly homosexual, at least in the big cities, and there were also numerous independent magazines and news papers (including many that were English language) that were openly hostile and critical of the regime. But it's a horrible and corrupt regime that's for sure. In lots of Russia outside of the crown jewels (the cities of Moscow, St Petersberg, and Nozhny Novgorod things can be very tough. Which is sad because those regions are very rich in natural resources. Moscow definitely plunders the country to keep up its lifestyle.

What I have found while traveling though is that societies can be evil, but individual people are just people. There are generous people and evil people, so you shouldn't let the fact that a society as a whole is bad to tarnish your opinion of the individuals that live there.

Lol, I liked the album they did with production legend Trevor Horn, but Tatu were about as gay as the Black and White Minstrels were black. (Yes, I know about Lenny Henry.)

I haven't been to Brazil but I found Russia less irritating than traveling through the rest of Asia, mainly because you don't stand out like a sore thumb, you aren't hounded by taxi drivers and people trying to sell you things.

There are hassles, you have to pre-plan your route and get approval from the embassy in NZ for your itinerary before you get your visa, your supposed to stick to it exactly but I've never had any trouble deviating from it. There are towns and cities which are called Zatos and are blocked to foreigners as they have strategic importance so you should definitely not go there (although they don't advertise which cities they are). But even if you travel to a city like St. Petersberg and turn up at a hotel or backpackers without an invite you often will find that they are very reluctant to let you stay there as they can get in trouble for harboring someone illegally. Although I was never turned away they just grumble a lot. I don't think its well enforced.

You can even catch a flight across country into the depths of the Taiga without the right paperwork, once your in your in. The only exception is traveling down to areas which are unstable like the Caucasus, and probably those Zato towns as they have armed soldiers at the borders between Oblasts (states) and check all trains and buses. But even then you just get off before the border and hitch hike through as they don't tend to check private vehicles. 

One thing that is always interesting when in a country like that is the language, as I said learn the cyrilic alphabet, it will only take a couple of hours and is pretty easy. It makes your life way easier. I know from traveling through China how hard it is when you can't read anything. There are plenty of people around who speak English, or something close. It's compulsory to learn either English or German at school and it's way easier to find someone who can help translate than it is in most other non english speaking countries. But it's actually amazing how well you can communicate after a bottle of vodka even if you don't speak the same language.

"Im psshhhhed."

"Ymm meetoo.

"U wha?"

"Psshhhhd."

 "Fkoff."

"Ufkoff."

"Shhoor."

Shoor wot?"

"Psshhsd."

"Not."

"R"

"Fudgeintooright..."

... weeping, collapsing, living to fight another day....

@ Ryan, am seriously looking at going, especially after what you wrote above.  Do you think the visa and travel rules are the same for Poms? I tend to pick and chose which passport to use.  My kiwi one sounds like a wee bit of a hassle.

I'm going to Moscow next year and considered timing my visit to coincide with the Confederations Cup but after the nonsense in France, no thanks. Even on the off chance that we qualify for the WC I think I'll give it a miss.

I'm enjoying being at the Euros but  I will not go to Russia. After watching their fans in Marseille...no thanks. The English fans caused a bit of trouble on the Thursday Friday but the town was flooded with Ruskies on the Saturday. Lots of them went down to the Old Port and sorted the English fans out. It was a thrashing....middle aged fat drunk Poms vs young fit strong Russians....they looked like combat troops.  Something like 35 English were hospitalised including two near dead. Those Eastern European hooligans are psycho's. No way would I be going to Russia.

I"ve got Poland vs Ukraine next Thursday in Marseille. The authorities have drafted in an extra 500 riot police. Anyone want to buy my tickets LOL?

Just think how many HAVEN'T travelled to France...

A NZ passport is fine to travel on, although I did cause some consternation when crossing into China in the far east. They were sure it was a fake as they only ever had russian and Chinese nationals crossing at that point. With a Kiwi passport you have the added benefit of going into the world queue rather than the European queue if transiting in Europe, which is always much shorter.

As far as ultras go, I'm sure the police and military will be out in force. It's also a prime target for terrorists from Chechnya or Dagestan and they don't want trouble in such a high profile event. I wouldn't worry about people rioting personally, keep an eye open for it and don't be a prick and antagonise people, but you'd be unlucky to be caught in it.

You do need to keep an eye out for Russia's robot uprising though:

http://qz.com/709161/its-happening-a-robot-escaped...

Not really sure if this belongs here, but here goes:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/world-game/81378960/are-the-all-whites-able-to-emulate-iceland-on-the-world-football-stage

Another 'quality' piece of work from Tony Smith. From getting the very basics wrong (a country of almost 40 million people is only marginally more populous than NZ) to completely missing the point. The number crunching in this context is meaningless - it's not the size of those countries or the number of players, but the highly developed footballing infrastructure (both at club and national level), multiple pathways to high levels of the game (especially in terms of being able to have close to unrestricted access to the entire European football market, with some exceptions), frequent exposure to competition against high-level of opponents due to geographic proximity, the level of investments in the game (both financially and in terms of other resources) - none of which is easily replicated here (in fact, some of them simply can't be replicated at all).

I think I'll stop there before I make it too personal.

"But the Euro Eight's admirable deeds still conjure memories of the All Whites' three draws at the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa where, but for a bit more ambition in their final pool game against Paraguay, they could also possibly have qualified for the round of 16 stage."

Is he still really running with the whole 'everything about the 2010 campaign was Ryan Nelson's doing, EXCEPT for the game against Paraguay, where Ricki Herbert decided he didn't want the team to score goals'?  He must have been watching a completely different game to the one I remember, because the one I was watching we had about about 40% possession, and were completely outclassed.  I don't think the managers ambition was what stopped us from going through there.

On his main point (and yours), you are completely right, it's such a surface level comparison that it is meaningless.

Edit:  Wow, i missed the bit where he said Poland was only just more populous than New Zealand.  That's just...  wow.

Thanks Ryan.  Am still keen for the trip.  I've been over for the Euros this week and what I saw on  the ground was nothing like the media portrayed.  Great happy, friendly vibe around the enclosures.

Okay so we won the Nations Cup.

What now? 

Not sure what international windows are used for World Cup Qualifiers as I heard these have changed. Someone enlighten me?

I would also assume, that in those windows where there isn't qualifying games, that we would have friendlies due to the supposed funds we gained after winning nations cup? 

Just would like to know.

unconfirmed this is what I think it will be

This morning in the wikipedia all whites page, 2 friendly games for november were in the fixture (one vs Australia the other vs Russia) but it was erased, any news on that?

Australia have Asian qualifying games in November.   They have no desire to play likes of NZ in friendlies anyway.

Ange wants them to target playing 'big' teams, so they can test themselves/improve. They have played likes of England, Brazil, France, Greece, Holland, Germany last 4-5 years in friendlies. They have no desire to play AWs

um...

E-mailed NZ Football today.

Was advised... OFC will hold the draw tomorrow. First round definitely in November.

Draw happening at 11am. You can watch here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCZO2K-AgL8

Much excitement. Hoping for the French-speaking combo, doing one of those away would be awesome.

This is specatcularly rangi to watch.

New Caledonia and Fiji in our group. Decent away trip in there.

New Caledonia and Fiji. Tempted to do both.

Games are played Home and Away so we will actually get to see the All Whites play a game in this country again