Football fans in museums

Red Square, Nikolskaya Street and Manezhnaya Square have been the busiest places in Moscow during the World Cup, attracting numerous fans. As it turned out, among other things, they visit museums. Head of the Russian State Historical Museum Alexey Levykin said that the museum is open from 10:00 to 21:00, and the Saint Basil's Cathedral - from 10:00 to 18:00: "Now we pay a lot of attention to this unique monument of Russian architecture of the XVI century, the symbol of the capital and our entire country, because we had to introduce the access control system for the Saint Basil's Cathedral literally from the very first days - the number of visitors is huge. This year there were first attempts to enter the Saint Basil's Cathedral with fake tickets. I use the opportunity to ask those people, which want to visit the Saint Basil's Cathedral to remember that these tickets can be bought either at the ticket office or on the website of the Historical Museum."

Speaking about the most popular exhibits, Levykin noted: "The golden pantry of the Historical Museum, the beautiful interior of the Saint Basil's Cathedral, the interior of the main building of the Historical Museum. A lot of attention is paid to Lenin's car, which we have in the museum, people stop near and take pictures, By the way, there are special fan zones on the territory of the museum, where visitors can take a selfie or just a regular photo. We prepared special programs for the Saint Basil's Cathedral that can be used by tourists after the museum is closed. This program is exclusive, designed for small groups of up to 30 people, who will not just have an opportunity to visit the Cathedral in a more or less calm evening atmosphere, but also listen to the beautiful chant of the male vocal ensemble 'Doros,' performing there. Tickets can be purchased on the museum's website."

Alexei Levykin also said that FAN ID holders enjoy benefits and visit all the museums of the Historical Museum complex with a 30% discount. "More than 80 thousand people visited us during this period, more than 40 thousand of them were FAN ID holders. On July 7, the Russian national team has a crucial match with Croatia. On June 6, we organize the 'Support the Russian team' action - all visitors of the museum wearing the Russian national team T-shirts, having Russian symbols of our team,  will enjoy free entrance to our museum."

Director of the State Historical Museum admitted that he is also a fan: "The first World Cup, which I remember well is the 1966 World Cup. I was seven years old back then, but I remember it. Yashin was great, such great masters of our team as Chislenko, Voronin, Malofeev, Khusainov were wonderful. I remember the goals scored to our gates, Beckenbauer's goal, Eusebio's penalty. But you can support only one team - your own team. You can watch others with great interest, evaluate their play. I'm an old fan of Spartak Moscow and I remember Nikolai Petrovich Starostin's brilliant phrase "order beats class." Our team was very well prepared tactically and physically for the championship. And due to tactical and physical training, it minimizes its problems with rivals of higher class, as it was in the case with the Spanish team."