Russian authorities are taking no chances. Literally every street corner in the city centre is home to half a dozen police, army or security personnel. Everyone gets their penetrating stare. Any time, day or night, I feel totally safe here, but I am Scottish and we misguidedly think we’re safe everywhere.

Tourist information stalls in pop-up tents have appeared everywhere in the city… and when they are closed at night, every single one of them has a khaki-clad soldier or security guard stationed inside to prevent anyone (I’m not blaming here, but yes, penniless football fans may well be the target market) from using it as a free bed for the night. It seems like a lucrative AirBnB partnership opportunity missed though…

Ubers and taxis are dirt cheap - the ride in from the airport costs just $7.50, nowhere in the city has cost me more than $4 to get to so far, and coffees cost the same as they do in Sydney…and are actually pretty good. 

There’s a cafe near the city centre that does flat white and long blacks, and served by a bloke with a top knot and a beard, who almost certainly was vaping out the back between customers. I mean, really, who even NEEDS Melbourne now? They even sell a Rick and Morty Wubba Lubba Dub Dub coffee.

But language is a huge barrier, far more than it ever was in Brazil. Google Translate is the universal babel fish though - it’s the go to for hotel receptionists, taxi drivers and police (yes, I’ve had a couple of run ins already) and if you have the app on your phone, it can translate menu items in real time using the camera. It’ll even try to match the original font.

Sometimes though, it’s actually simpler than it looks. Coming into Kazan, I saw what I thought was a suburb sign for the Cton area. Then I saw it again, and again. And then I realised it was literally just Cyrillic for Stop - the C is S, then T and O and the n is actually pi and pronounced P. It’s literally STOP in a Russian disguise.

But that where it stops (see what I did there?) being simple. Russian language is complex and our Western tongues are just not used to trying to get round the multi-syllable, multi-consonant words. 

My attempts just to say Hello leave me sounding like a drunk Scot having a stroke. Which is probably foreshadowing me one day actually being a drunk Scot having a stroke – and someone thinking I’m just fluently saying Zdravstvuyte.

I want to just say Privet, which is like Hi! But sadly, that’s apparently too informal for me to say to strangers. The subtleties of foreign language, eh?

On the rare occasion I do actually pull off a pronunciation, the other person mistakes me for someone who is not an idiot, and starts a conversation with me until I remind them I am indeed an idiot – and it all grinds to a halt again…