(Source: http://misanec.ru)

An insignificant number of public catering outlets with delicious dishes are the only complaint expressed by the city residents themselves. By the way, all city cafes and restaurants open at 10 a.m., confusing those who arrive in Saransk on morning trains. Those who arrive at 7 a.m. have nowhere to eat in the city, if you do not know that there is a hotel titled “Sura” and the Japanese restaurant “Taki Maki” working this early at a distance of 10-15 minutes walk from the railway station.

National cuisine can be appreciated in a restaurant named, respectively, “Natsionalny” on the main Sovetskaya Square.

You should order “kersez” - chopped meat, baked with potatoes, “medvezhya lapa”(“bear paw”) - a kind of cutlet of pork, liver, bread and eggs as well as pancakes on millet flour. Then drink some “poza” - an alcoholic beverage made from of steamed beetroot.

National Mordovian dishes are also served in the “Slavyanka” cafe (4 Kommunisticheskaya Street), “12 chairs” cafe (4 Lenina Avenue), “Yolki” (59A Kommunisticheskaya Street), “Mordovia” (24 Rossiyskaya Street), and in the “Teatralnoe” Cafe. A hall of national cuisine has recently opened in the “Restaurant on Moskovskaya”.

Local Pecularities

Saransk is the centre of Finno-Ugric culture of Russia. Since 2007 a large festival titled “Shumbrat, Finno-Ugria!” has been held there.

It should be clarified that the Finno-Ugric people of Mordva are divided into two subgroups, Mordva-Moksha and Mordva-Erzya. There is also a pseudo-ethnonym of “shoksha” in literature and in the mass consciousness. The ethnonym “shoksha” has been first used to denote the Erzya of Tengushevsky and Torbeevsky districts of the Republic of Mordovia relatively recently. Moksha and Erzya speak similar, but different dialects, the relationships between the representatives of cultures are not easy.

Tables with the names of streets and institutions in Saransk are signed in three languages: in two Mordovian dialects and in Russian.

Trolley buses and buses are running around. However, shuttle buses have been definitely recognized as the most convenient means of transportation.

Famous people

If you don’t have enough time to get acquainted with the surroundings of the city, try to visit at least the Sanaksar Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God where Admiral Ushakov is buried.

Saransk was a home to the poet-democrat A.I. Polezhaev, famous artist F.V.Sychkov (a student of I.Repin), classical composer of Mordvinian music L.P. Kiriukov.

A well-known philologist and philosopher M.M. Bakhtin had worked at the Mordovian State University for a long time.

It should be clarified that the Finno-Ugric people of Mordva are divided into two subgroups, Mordva-Moksha and Mordva-Erzya. There is also a pseudo-ethnonym of “shoksha” in literature and in the mass consciousness. The ethnonym “shoksha” has been first used to denote the Erzya of Tengushevsky and Torbeevsky districts of the Republic of Mordovia relatively recently. Moksha and Erzya speak similar, but different dialects, the relationships between the representatives of cultures are not easy.