There is a gigantic 'Welcome to Moscow' banner at the airport, there are Champions League adverts all over town and Red Square has been transformed into a Uefa Champions Festival, with all manner of activities planned leading up to the game.
In fact, the first of the major northern towns to fall to Iraqi Kurdish fighters under the banner of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a new face in this town called Khanaqin, about 80 miles north of Baghdad.