The summer of 2019 was particularly hot in Russia as the country hosted the FIFA World Cup. Thousands of football fans from all over the world invaded the streets of major cities turning squares, parks and central avenues into endless carnivals. Brand new giant stadiums grew out of swamps and wasteland. The city-centers of Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Rostov-on-the-Don, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Volgograd, Nijni-Novgorod, Kazan, Sochi, Kaliningrad did not go to sleep for a month, as guests mingled with locals in and around the fan zones, in an exhilarating and unprecedented movement of fraternization. Every bar, every restaurant, anything resembling a joint had hung one or several TV sets, inside and outside, gathering excited crowds of fans, both veterans and freshly baked.

This story has won Visa Pour L’Image Daily Press Award in 2018