There were tears in the foyer as hotel staff queued up to take pictures of the press corps - then sent a couple of brave porters on to the bullet train platform to pursue us out of the station waving the flag of St George.

BBC: World Cup memory lane

It was 70 years ago, in 1937, that Ivan Papanin first landed on drifting ice floes and raised the Soviet flag over the North Pole-1 station.

ECONOMIST: Ventures into the near-abroad