St Petersburg

Have a friend who is Scottish but has been following Portugal away for over 20 years (His best mate is Portuguese and has friends at the Portuguese FA). 

Anyways, they went off to St Petersburg for the Portugal game at the weekend. Initially, he was a bit sceptical and was saying that if he didn't like it then he probably wouldn't bother going to the world cup next year. Met him last night and he couldn't shut up about the place ! Said it's a lovely city, lots of history etc and lots of nice buildings. Not one hint of trouble over there, said the locals were pretty friendly. 

The Metro has lots of English signs so no hassles getting around using that. The stadium is kinda in the middle of a big park so around 20 mins from the Metro. Nothing around it in terms of bars etc (I did point out that this was perfect "Bag of Cans" territory !) Said it wasn't as cheap over there as he expected : If you are close to the main areas then you'll probably be paying UK prices for things. As with most cities, if you go off the beaten track a bit then it gets cheaper. 

Also mentioned there is a chain of 3 Irish pubs in the City called "O'Hooligans" !

He said the ID system they have in place for the tickets etc is very effective and would eliminate most of the possibility of touts selling tickets. He wasn't too impressed with the outside of the stadium but said they view in there was great, as expected. 

Obviously, this is one one person's view of one city but maybe Russia might turn out to be a pleasant surprise for those who are a bit wary.