I so enjoyed watching the Australian Soccer team play France in Kazan in their first game of World Cup 2018.
I visited Kazan in 2001 and remember it as a wonderful regional Russian city even then.
The day after Australia played France, I heard sports commentator Francis Leach talking on the radio about how Kazan is a really smart town with good transport, wifi/internet that would embarrass Australia and good food. He did have reservations about the two step process in ordering beers in some of the bars there. But hey!
I went there for a few days with work colleague Greg Ceff when I worked in Moscow at the turn of the century. And I had to write a travel newsletter about it to let my family and friends know how good it was.
So here is it, my newsletter about visiting Kazan, click on the link here for the PDF document Kazan
By the way, this is an extract from a collection of newsletters called Tales of the Bear, the Dragon and Other Wondrous Creatures. You can read a sample of this on lulu.com. Click here
Enjoy your soccer!