St Petersburg

Borussia wrote: Did I not read somewhere that there is going to be free transport for the duration of the world cup i.e. Your visa is your train ticket etc ?

ConorMac77 wrote: Borussia wrote: Did I not read somewhere that there is going to be free transport for the duration of the world cup i.e. Your visa is your train ticket etc ? Yeah but I think I saw a comment from Super Dave a number of months ago that it would only entitle you to travel in 3rd class - basically steerage - in a carriage consisting of 50-odd bunk beds (open to correction)! If you want a compartment with fewer beds, you'd need to pay extra.

What I said was it wasn't clear what class of carriage it entitled you to.

I still don't know.

There is someone on here (UCDfan?) at the confederations cup. Maybe he can tell us.

Also, while it is free, you can't just rock up and get on. There is a specific website on which to book trains, which I think you can only do once you have your FanID (visa substitute) and match tickets.

It looks like the whole thing will be an administrative f**king nightmare if we do make it, especially Kaliningrad, with the Belarus visa issue.

http://welcome2018.com/en/free-transport/#more

Surely getting to and from Kaliningrad by train won't be free if you have to travel through neighbouring countries i.e Latvia, Belarus and possibly Ukraine.

Edited by colemanY2K - 28 Jun 2017 at 4:38pm

Yes St. Petersburg is well known to be a beautiful city and the only place in Russia I would venture into.

The White Cafu wrote: Also worth noting that no alcohol will be sold on fan trains.

OnTheOneRoad wrote: colemanY2K wrote: Surely getting to and from Kaliningrad by train won't be free if you have to travel through neighbouring countries i.e Latvia, Belarus and possibly Ukraine. A first game in Kaliningrad would be lovely. Budget flight to Gdansk/Lithuania and then a short journey onwards

The only way that could happen is if Ireland came out as either team D3 or D4.

There wouldn't be a short journey after that match though...no matter which team Ireland came out as.

Edited by colemanY2K - 28 Jun 2017 at 5:39pm

There will be direct flights to the Russian cities that we will play in

Arrived in St Petersburg this morning. The fan id visa was simple, just filled in the usual details and got an email the next day with a link to download an electronic version to print and pick up the hard copy when you arrive. You can get the hard copy posted in advance but I booked too close. I was a bit sceptical of how the print out would work but in the end it was only checking in Dublin that was difficult - they didn't know what it was but there was no problem arriving.

Great city so far and very helpful and friendly locals going out of their way to help. Came over on an air Moldova overnighter. I'll never go that way again - only one staff on the transfer desk and wouldn't let me skip the long queue even when it got to 10 mins to my flight. I had to go mad and ended up being driven at 50 mph on the runway to the plane...

Borussia, your mate's right about prices, its only a little cheaper than home in the tourist areas (all I've seen so far). €5 a pint. I watched the semi in Mollies on Rubenstein earlier, cosy spot that seems like it'd be a local if you lived here. That same street is class, amazing bars and restaurants on it that I have to check tomorrow. And, a no doubt Russian pub, called 'Fiddler's Green'. O'Hooligans on Burkina was quiet but it could be madness...