"I did not expect it! Two days before leaving home, even in the Russian subway station used our national Alipay!" World Cup start soon, fifty-three-year-old from Jiangsu, Aunt Qian is to go to the Russian army One member. Just arrived in Moscow, she began to stroll around the city with a few little sisters, take the famous Central Ring Road subway in Russia. At the Luzhnyi subway station, Qian Aunt bought a subway ticket with a mobile phone. "It's a good thing! You can buy it without sweeping it. You don't have to look at Russian."
It is not just the purchase of subway tickets. In order to welcome the Chinese tourists watching the World Cup, about 4,000 merchants in Russia have access to Alipay. Including well-known Russian department stores: TSUM Moscow Central Department Store, National Department Store GUM and DTL St. Petersburg Leningrad Trade Building. In addition, L'Etoile, which is also known as Sephora in Russia, and local supermarket chains Dixy, Victoria, and Azbuka, as well as the Imperial Duty Free in Moscow Sheremetyevo Airport, have also opened Alipay consumption.
The central ring that Ms. Qian took is a circular railway in the urban area of Moscow. According to the report of Russia's Moscow City News Network (Mskagency), in September 2017, the Luzhni base station on the Moscow Central Ring Road officially opened Alipay tickets. Currently Alipay already covers five sites on the Central Link: Luzhnyi Base Station, Izmailovo Station, Business Center Station, Locomotive Station, and Gagarin Plaza Station. Roman Latpop, the first deputy director of the Moscow Metro, said: "This will make the Moscow Central Link more popular with Chinese tourists."
It is understood that in order to facilitate the purchase of tickets by Chinese passengers, the central ring ticket window is affixed with Chinese prompts, and the toll gate is also equipped with a dedicated PIN-Pad device that can generate and print the QR code required for payment. Chinese passengers only need to use the Alipay App to scan the QR code on the ticket and pay for the ticket.
It can be said that Alipay, as the representative of the "New Four Big Inventions," added another Chinese element to this World Cup. In recent days, Bai Yansong’s slogan of "Russia's World Cup, China's football team did not go, everything else went." According to reports, there will be about 100,000 Chinese fans visiting Russia in the World Cup. The number of tickets purchased by Chinese fans is ranked 9th in all countries.