Russia's airports have had a facelift and thankfully for the exhausted fans on the World Cup trail they have not proven to be much of an inconvenience.
With distances between venues potentially thousands of kilometres, they have had to be amenable.
Coffee shops, relaxing massage chairs or playing table football. They're all available.
As are bars showing what has brought all these travellers to Russia - there's no escaping the football.
There's no escaping the fans, either, as they criss-cross the huge country.
Football is a universal language.
For Korean software engineer Seo Dong Yal, preparations for the World Cup began a year ago and it has cost his three-member family about $A15,000.
Experiencing the World Cup for the fifth-straight time, his favourite World Cup was in Germany in 2006.
"It was perfect. Beautifully organised. Amazing transport and cheap," he said.
"The most expensive was in 2014 in Brazil due to the large cost of air tickets."
German engineer Detlef Ziolkowski has come to Russia with his wife Birgit from Cologne for a week to watch two matches. It has not been cheap - $A10,000.
"I paid 220 euros ($350) for each ticket to see my country play against Sweden but fortunately we won in the end," he said.
After Sochi, it's Kazan.
For Russia, that's not considered a huge distance at about 1,500km. However, it usually involves flying back to Moscow.
It can be a draining experience.
Time will tell what the World Cup has done for Russia's image as a tourist destination.
There were predictions that more than 1.5 million foreign tourists would visit the country during the World Cup.
Not all will have tickets.
The Fan Fests in every host city have been vibrant - FIFA, soccer's world governing body, announced that in the first week of the matches, 2.5 million fans watched games in designated areas across the 11 host cities.
Share
