November Summer: "Golden Season with BipKar" travels through time

The annoyance from Spartak's recent match with Maribor has not subsided yet. How could it be so easy to give away a much-needed victory… But let's not sprinkle ashes on our heads, it's better to talk about the good. And the away game with Krasnodar last weekend was good, which we went to as part of the Golden Season with BipKar project. Sergey Baryshnikov, as always, took over the travel report.

For an ordinary fan who supports his favorite club not only on the couch or at the home stadium, Krasnodar is the best place on the football map of our country. And here's why.

Climate

If the match takes place between mid-October and mid-April, then a trip to the Kuban becomes a journey from winter to summer. This is especially noticeable if you go by car. With every hundred kilometers, the thermometer adds a couple of degrees. Starting from the Rostov region, green grass appears in the fields instead of snow, the sun begins to warm for real, and the jacket and hat are sent to the trunk with a slight movement of the hand. It should be noted that for such abrupt climatic changes, an all-wheel drive car like our Subaru is best suited, which did not get lost on the ice, and swallowed all the irregularities of the Rostov asphalt.

Road

I have already told you about the M4 highway more than once, it really gets steeper and steeper every month. New gas stations are opening with full-fledged food outlets, not just hot dogs and donuts. New toll sections are being actively built and are almost ready to launch. It remains only to come up with something with roads in the Rostov region, and it will be the best highway in Russia.

From Moscow to Krasnodar is a little less than 1400 kilometers. If desired, you can meet in one day. Leave at five or six in the morning and arrive before midnight, if you stop for lunch somewhere in the Kamensk-Shakhtinsky area once. By the way, there is a delightful museum of Soviet cars almost on the highway. I have little idea how they all ended up there, but I highly recommend visiting.

If you are not interested in cars, then literally a hundred kilometers away there is a town called Millerovo — the birthplace of our captain Denis Glushakov. It is worth stopping by at least in order to try Miller's magic drink, made famous by Denis.

Fellow travelers

We got teachers again. Let me remind you that we drove to the match with Tosno with teachers of English and computer science, and this time Denis, a physical education teacher from Krasnogorsk near Moscow, went with us. Under the stories about how he is now playing against Roman Shirokov in an amateur league, half the road flew unnoticed.

By the way, a tip: fill out your personal profile in the BeepCar travel companion search service in as much detail as possible, so you will have more chances to get confirmation from the driver.

Housing

The city is full of hotels and hostels for every budget. You can even stay in the same hotel with the team. Spartak stops at the Hilton (the one on Krasnaya Street). Check in there, too, and maybe you'll have a chance to chat with Leonid Fedorovich Trachtenberg in the lobby in the evening or cross paths with Promes at breakfast.

Food and drinks

The city is full of delicious establishments: from one of the best restaurants in the south of Russia "Cattle" to a scattering of pubs and craft bars. It's hard to stay hungry and sober in Krasnodar.

The atmosphere in the city is very friendly. You walk around the center late at night alone, "on flowers" and you don't feel anything like aggression (as, for example, in St. Petersburg) or indifference (Ufa and Perm), but quite the opposite: the locals are more likely to smile or joke somehow. Some bright and unusual feelings.

Park and Stadium

This is some kind of fiction that does not fit in my head. On the square next to the stadium, where Galitsky built a crazy park with his own money, Muscovites or residents of St. Petersburg would have long ago forgotten a residential complex and a couple of shopping centers. The park is full of greenery, water and an unusual landscape. It looks very cool!

As for the stadium, of course, I love the "Opening Arena" with every fiber of my soul, but I will be frank. Krasnodar Stadium is better. Yes, you can grumble about ill-conceived navigation, but this is nothing more than a quibble. Which you completely forget about a minute before the start of the match, when the presentation of the team begins on the screens. This is world-class!

More from observations. There are a lot of children and women in the stands. More than anywhere else in our country. Partly because of this, the support of Krasnodar during the match, despite the completely packed stadium, is quite weak. Three times during the match, everyone shouted "Kras-no-dar" together, and that was it. Spartak really played like at home, and for this huge respect to everyone who arrived. Although there were at least half as many of us as in the spring.

As for the sore topic of entering/exiting the stands, then the stadium is one of the best in this parameter. 20 minutes after the final whistle, there was no one in the stands. The only fly in the ointment is the inability to buy a ticket for the match via the Internet. This is something I will never understand. How can you not learn to sell tickets online in 2017, generating a secondary market and local isolds?

There is only Tula left until the New Year, where we invite everyone.

*BeepCar is a service through which drivers offer free seats in cars, and passengers are looking for those who are on the way. The cost of gasoline is shared by fellow travelers. Download a convenient app for iPhone/iPad and Android or use the website.