World Cup 2018: Is Saransk the most unusual host city in Russia?

Maybe that is why the city is so keen to impress. Every fan I spoke to here had the same story: welcoming, beautiful weather, great atmosphere. Yes, the prices have been hiked up, but veterans of past tournaments had seen all that before.

I spoke to Viktor, one of five men working in a team of gardeners, a coin collector with hands like bark.

“It’s a small place, Saransk. Everyone was surprised when they said the World Cup would be coming,” he said. “Now people will know we are here.”

I didn’t ask Viktor about politics, about who he voted for – but in March’s presidential elections Vladimir Putin attracted more than 85% of the votes here, compared to 76% nationally.

Later, Oleg grabbed me in the street and was almost breathless in his excitement when I told him I was from England. The night before Colombia played Japan, we walked to Millennium Square together, where women in local Mordovian dress were singing traditional, pleasingly atonal, folk songs. Some in the crowd danced with Colombians – that was the real centre of attention.

On a warm evening, with swifts flying overhead and shashlik smoke drifting across the square, a Colombian television presenter addressed her audience back home – a glimpse of this unknown place sent out across the world.

On the way back home later that night, I passed a Colombian fan who had brought his white husky with him, all the way from Medellin. “Yeah, you have to say they have done a really good job and it’s great to be here,” he said. “First time in Russia, lovely people. Very curious about us.”

Speaking of the curious, down a side street soon after that I saw yet another overweight cat, this time carried in a woman’s arms.

Just what is it about this place?

But for all the sense of happiness the World Cup has brought to Saransk there is also the question – a now familiar World Cup question – of legacy. What will happen to all of this once the party ends?

The stadium is brand new, opened this year. Next season it will welcome Mordovia Saransk, a team who two years ago were in the third tier and last year struggled to pay their players. The capacity will be reduced from 45,000 down to about 30,000.