I’ve travelled all over the world, and one of my favourite things to do is to work from various cafes.
I wanted to make a coffee table book, but I decided to first blog about it. I was inspired by my good friends at Villa 92 to start a blog (https://villa92.ca). The featured image in the blog was supposed to be a picture of Antarctica but it looks more like someone is flipping me off ;).
I lived in Moscow on and off for 6 years, totalling about 3 years, so I’ll start with covering Moscow first. I will extend this to other parts of the world in future blogs. Even though I am not a fan of chains, I did want to mention that I loved how Starbucks (Старбакс in Cyrillic) does a better job at making cappuccinos with coconut milk than in the US. Right beside it is another chain that I love, Шоколадница. If I had another choice, I’d go to a different cafe but it depends on the view and comfort of the chairs.
It’s funny how the price of a cappacino is roughly the same when you convert it to USD. Given that baristas make the equivalent of $2USD/hr, it would take them 2.5 hours to buy a drink. I didn’t realize that, and I was going to Starbucks everyday (when I was living away from the city center, it was the closest to me by walking), and they must have thought I was loaded ;). I also got a kick out of how they write my name МИША in cyrillic handwriting when they call my order. Cursive handwriting in Russian is way more difficult for me to read.
If you don’t speak Russian, you can use the google translate app in “image mode” which translates everything with augmented reality, and actually tries to match the font size. I do have to laugh at how Американо translates to “American Women” but should be “Americano”, although American women would need an extra “k”…. or maybe I was at a brothel. 😉
This will probably blow your mind as many people don’t have this impression of Russia. Their shopping malls are incredible and probably better than in North America. You would be in awe just looking at it.
The above pics is from a mall attached to the metro stop, Kievskaya, so you can technically get to it without even going outsdide once you are in the metro system. I honestly felt like I was in the movie Tron. The cafe at the bottom is quite cool. I could just walk around places like this all day… The ads keep changing and the lighting effects are constantly changing colours. This is the opposite angle:
There’s another shopping mall near my old residence, just 1 stop on the metro line, called метрополис and during Cosmonaut day, they decorated the mall with cosmos-related things. Their malls are all typically open concept, and this was taken from a cafe where you can sit down and enjoy a coffee (кофе). In fact you can get from this mall from the last mall without stepping outside via the Metro.
I prefer the mom and pop’s cafes, which is more up my alley, as they have a bit more of a uniqueness to them.
This cafe, KOF Lab, for instance, is in the Flacon neighbourhood, my favourite hangout. They have a brick wall, which was painted with an aroma wheel. It’s all in Russian, but I could read more than half of it. It’s a cool way to learn new words 😉
This cafe has many board games, Jenga included.
The Flacon neighbourhood/district (район) is amazing to walk through. It’s very hipster-like. This is the outside of a cafe. All of the buildings in this district are decorated with art.
Even the fence walls leading into the area have nice murals.
Now, this isn’t really a cafe, but I wanted to show how McDonald’s was all over Moscow. Starbucks and McDonald’s have closed all of their stores in Russia due to the “special military operation”. The escalator leading up to it is pretty cool. Teenagers probably nickname this escalator “highway to heaven”. They did have an Indian spiced latte on their menu, which I never saw in Canada or America… so if you did ever catch me there, it was to get that 😉
Шоколадница (Shokoladnitsa) is one of my favourite chains. They have quite a good menu. Here, I had шакшука, a Moroccan dish, and I’ll be honest, I don’t think North American chains have a menu like this.
Sometimes I feel like they are ahead in technology, or are more eager to try it out. Шоколадница has automatic robots serving people. They don’t make the coffee though, but they are programmed to deliver to your table!
Гум (pronounced goom) is a very ritzy mall right next to Red Square. If you’re familiar with Toronto, it’s like Eaton Centre, but bigger and richer. кофемания ( Coffee-mania) is a higher-end Russian chain, which you can see straight ahead.
The cafes on these river boats which go up and down the Moscow River are pretty cool, too! This pic was taken in the winter. You can see the ice and snow.
My friend knows the owner of this next cafe called Respublika, which is amazing. It’s a bookstore with a cafe room, which has a total hipster vibe, and a mirrored ceiling. I worked from here sometimes – you can see my laptop by the window.
I know this blog is about cafes, but I cannot omit being at the 18th best restaurant in the world, White Rabbit. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/06/14/moscows-white-rabbit-makes-worlds-top-20-restaurants-a53286
Also, Costa coffee is a chain, but it has a nice view. This picture is taken from Europe’s largest mall, Aviapark. There’s an enormous cylindrical aquarium in the center. It takes 30 minutes to walk from one end of the mall to the other!
You would never guess what’s so special about this next cafe:
This is a cafe inside an English movie theatre, Юность. It’s not really “English” but they present movies in their original language, undubbed. All the other standard cinemas are dubbed into Russian and quite annoying for me. Since only 5% of the Russian population can speak English, the English-speakers are actually considered to be in a higher class. I love going to these theatres because usually, there’s only 5-10 people in the entire theatre, so it’s almost like a private viewing for only $2 USD. I love the fact that they don’t sell junk food, but instead serve high-end coffee with art.
Cafe FAQ is a really neat cafe. They have live music. The rooms are made to look like you’re in a cave. I love the ambiance of this place! This was one metro stop away from where I worked. It’s more of a night place though. I think that a lot of Russians like using English names with latin letters because it’s “cool”.
