England’s Russia 2018 base camp feels like the end of the world – with little to do and even less to see
SunSport's Neil Ashton visits lonely Repino that might even be as boring as Camp Capello of the dire 2010 World Cup campaign
IT feels like the end of the world.
This is the setting for England’s base camp in Russia next summer, a few hundred feet away from the waves crashing in from the Gulf of Finland.
Everything breaks here.
There is not much to do in Repino, not much to see, not much to set the pulse racing.
Think Camp Capello, the boredom base in Rustenburg that drove the players round the bend during England’s doomed 2010 World Cup campaign in South Africa.
This lonely planet, deposited in the middle of the sprawling Komarovo forest 45 minutes west of St Petersburg, will test their resilience.
When England’s players open the curtains at the forRestMix Club each morning and look out from their balcony at the pines and spruces, they will not be able to see the wood for the trees.
This modest hotel, a summer retreat built with wedged-up Russians in mind, will soon cut them down to size.
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It is a nice area for a mountain-bike ride, or somewhere for the kids to run riot in the park overlooking the inappropriately-named ‘Golden Beach’ for an hour or so.
But preparing for the mother of all football tournaments? Hmmm.
There is simply nothing to do here, with the nearest smattering of shops a few kilometres down the empty, deserted, soulless roads.
Even then they are mostly small retail outlets feeling sorry for themselves in between endless dreary hotels and chalets and lodgings.
There is no DSquared, no Dolce, no Armani here — England’s players will need St Petersburg for that.
Instead they will spend most of their time holed up at forRestMix preparing for the three group games that will make or break England’s international reputation.
It is here they will become accustomed to some quaint Russian traditions, such as serving mineral water at room temperature because they are terrified anything chilled will make guests sick.
England’s players will want to give this place the cold shoulder, for sure.
In the summer, when temperatures start to rise to a bearable 20°C in Repino, the mosquitos will arrive, nibbling away at some fresh English meat.
Gareth Southgate’s squad will train 15 minutes down the road in Zelenogorsk, at a new stadium springing up in a ghost town that has a name, but does not appear to have any residents.
To be fair, the training centre is in a stunning spot, with work going on around the clock to make sure the playing surfaces are immaculate.
When England arrive in June, the scores of empty vodka bottles discarded by destitute Russians will have been cleared away.
Make no mistake, this place could drive anybody to drink.
The harshness of winter does Repino no favours, with the sub-zero temperatures driving the last living souls around here indoors to hibernate.
Back at the forRestMix, they will have to make do with the bare essentials.
England, accustomed to the trappings of success and the luxurious lifestyle that comes with their jaw-dropping salaries, are in for quite a shock.
The bedrooms are spartan and modest, with 70s-style hairdryers hanging up in the bathrooms and a lonely bottle of water keeping the mini-bar in business.
England will bring their own chefs but the hotel buffet — comprising turkey, pork and cod — is top notch.
The staff are courteous, even though they claim to have no knowledge of England’s impending arrival.
There is a hairdressing salon on site, with the stylist cheerfully explaining that a cut and blow dry will only take “half an hour”.
That leaves 23 hours and 30 minutes of boredom to fill.
The gym will surely be taken over, replenished and restocked with the latest machinery for the modern-day, super-fit England player.
In the sports hall there are five-a-side goals, a nod in the direction of the FA after they settled on the forRestMix Club to prepare for an assault on the World Cup.
If the players are allowed out of the hotel grounds, there is a quaint little burger joint randomly placed by the side of the road a five-minute walk away.
A few hundred metres further along is the Zaliv discotheque, where exotic dancers party the night away until 5am once the dinner tables have been cleared.
In time-honoured fashion, we made our excuses and left long before the scantily-clad girls arrived on the premises.
On the same road is the fancy supermarket Globus Gourmet, dumped on the side of the road for no logical reason, stocking high-end food for well-heeled Russians.
An amble around the aisles takes five minutes, maybe ten at a push.
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Back at base camp, where players will spend an awful lot of downtime between training and travelling to the three group games, they will have the run of the place.
As a Fifa-designed tournament hotel, it will be off limits to the public — along with pesky journalists — for the duration of the World Cup.
Instead it will be home to England’s players for as long as they can take it.
As they will soon discover, the best road in Repino is the one out of it.
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