“I read a statistic the other day which gave me pause for thought: Russia, the world’s largest country by area, takes up approximately 11.5% of the Earth’s entire land mass. Actually as a journalist covering Russia I’ve have to learn by rote a good number of shorthand statistics to express the country’s size. 7,500 kilometres from East to West; a ten hour flight from its Baltic to Pacific coasts; nine time zones (thought it used to be eleven until earlier this year).” (The Football Ramble)