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TIME Europe, July 1, 1996
The World Wide Reds?
Russians discover the joys of drinking and driving on the net
An American fad called the cybercafe — corner shops wired up with Internet connections and caffeine-addled Web surfers —
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TIMEDigital
RECOMMENDS
Want to find out who were English-league football champs more than a century ago? No need to leave your armchair. Just dribble your way onto the World Wide Web, where there is an impressively rich collection of soccer resources.
FIFA Online
www.fifa.com
The Federation Internationale de Football Association has organized the World Cup since 1930, and its official Website will tell you who's bidding to host the tournament in 2002.
Euro 96
www.euro96.org
In 1863 a bunch of London clubs met inside the Freemason's Tavern on Great Queen Street and formed the Football Association. This June it's hosting the European Championship, England's biggest sporting event in decades.
Rete! The International Soccer Pages
www.vol.it/RETE_/
Italy's Video On Line has the most up-to-the-moment site of all, with player bios, live Net radio and a keyword-searchable database in four different languages.
J-League
www.dentsu.co.jp/J-LEAGUE/
Japan's professional football league was launched only in 1991, but it's attracted players from around the globe and may host the 2002 World Cup.
Football Statistics Archive info.risc.unilinz.ac.at:70/oh/mis cinfo/rsssf/engpaul/FLA/league.html
For anyone still wondering who the English-league champs were in 1888, this comprehensive online database has the answer.
Eurosoccer
www.eurosoccer.com
The essential guide for this year's European Championship offers a live chat "bar," bookies' odds, a wealth of tourist info for the various venues.
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has arrived in Russia. The Tetris Cafe, in the historic part of St. Petersburg, offers Web access and coffee to any babushka for the princely (by Russian standards) price of $10 an hour.
The high cost is attributable to the cafe's special fiber-optic phone lines that give Tetris speedy Internet access. (The rest of St. Petersburg has to surf along on Russia's ancient phone system.)
Those local patrons who don't understand much English can enlist the help of the Tetris staff for a tour
of Western Websites. The White House home page and Playboy's Website are the most popular stops. In a good week only 40 of St. Petersburg's 5 million people will surf and sip at the Tetris.
"Most Russians are a little afraid of the technology," says Anton Lukht, one of Tetris' co-founders.
"Those who dare come here don't realize what it is." Despite the low turnout, Tetris is upgrading its four 486s with speedy Pentium chips and may soon install cameras for Internet video conferencing to attract customers.
For some American students and expats, the cafe is a virtual home away from home. Customers can rent E-mail boxes and send a quick note home, chat in real time to friends across the ocean or just read a newspaper.
The cafe was founded by four St. Petersburg students who had originally planned to install the popular video game Tetris.
Today they offer games like DoomII, Descent and Duke Nukem 3D. After a cold-blooded Doom massacre, customers are invited to the adjoining restaurant. But most just want to learn about the Internet and sip a murky brew called "programmer's night." It's some of the best java in town, and as with anything Russian, it goes well with vodka.
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