The Best Cafés in Saransk

A nice, cozy café serving a variety of types of coffee as well as many lunch options. Centrally located, ProKoffi is a perfect place for brunch or just a quick shot of caffeine.

A chain of small, cozy cafés sprinkled around the city center, they serve a variety of classic espresso-based drinks, as well as coffee-free beverages and some sweet, coffee-based cocktails. A perfect spot for a quick caffeine shot on the go.

An art space as much as a café, Maska not only serves delicious coffee and a wide variety of teas but also excellent breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, as well as a large selection of alcoholic beverages. It is also a concert hall for local independent artists. Pop by in the evening and it’s very likely you’ll have a chance to see a chunk of the local music scene and to hang out with the artists and their audience.

A nice little café in the city center, AlekCoffee is a good place to grab a coffee and a piece of cake. If you’re lucky, you might even stumble upon a coffee tasting.

As it must be quite easy to guess, Paris Reel is a French-themed café with interiors aspiring to the empire style. A family-friendly place, where children’s workshops are organized on a regular basis, Paris Reel is very well located, which makes it a perfect mid-sightseeing coffee spot.

Russia is the birthplace of a radical, hippie idea of anticafé—a place where you pay not for the quantity of biscuits and beverages that you consume, but for the amount of time you spend there. Anticafés are, more than anything else, social spots. It is appropriate to join any group that might have formed, to talk to strangers, and to play board games with them. Events of various sorts are organized on a regular basis. The anticafé movement started in Moscow, but it has now expanded all over Russia (and beyond it) and every major city in the country is home to at least one. Saransk is no different. Kubik Rubikova is one of the city’s anticafés. It is an excellent place to spend an afternoon or an evening and to engage in an authentic, unique, local experience.

If you happen to be wandering around Gerard Depardieu’s cinema and find yourself in need of a coffee to go, Bodryi Den is your place. It is a small coffee stall located in a shopping center right in front of Kinotear Rossiya. They specialize in coffee and waffles. A perfect spot for a quick snack on an adventurous trip outside of the city center.