DESIGN FOR LOUNGING.

FOR SOME THE KRUZHKA BARS ARE SPORTS BARS – OTHERS ARE JUST HERE FOR THE BEER.

Below street level we find a septic alcove with orange walls and chunky polished dark wood tables lit by a creamy lamp glow. A posse of twenty-somethings lounges on leather armchairs as if set for the night.Between them lies a four litre beer dispenser from which they pump autumn leaf coloured ales into heavy glass tumblers….
Welcome to a standard Kruzhka bar.
Kruzhka – meaning `mug` or`tumbler` -represents Moscow’s premier sports bar and beer restaurant chain. Its affordable wares and relaxed ethos ensure that it remains a stopping off port for many a student and expat.

Part of the cityscape.
The first of these opened its doors in March seventeen years back in the Profsouyuznaya area in the south-east of the city. Since then – from Proletarskaya to Prospekt Vernaskovo, Taganskaya to Chertonovskaya – Krushka emporiums with their signature illuminated orange-knife-and fork-with-beer tankard-between have been sprouting up near metro stations throughout the metropolis. They come and go. For example, a pleasant one in a wooded part of Voikovskaya has just vanished as has a long-standing one on Gazetny Pereleuok but there are always new ones to replace them.

A Moscow initiative,the network has been bleeding into locations as distant as Khanti-Mansisk and Tumen (both in West Siberia) and there can even be found on in Minsk, the Belorussian capital.
The product.
The owners of the Kruzhka empire maintain a low public profile. Enter a Kruzhka bar and you will be served by young men from Tajikistan or Azerbaijan who, whilst not quite  the all smiles and help of a jolly inkeeper, seem attentive and hard-working enough.
Despite some pretension to being a craft beer specialist, the main beverages on offer are Zhiguli and their own house beers, all going for an average of 190 roubles for 0.5 litres. Their plain Krushka beer is pleasant but real hangover material.
Not so the Kruzhka Pshenichnoye – their Wheat beer-which is a velvety quaffable delight and counts as one of my favourite beers.

As a Brit, the process of drinking and eating are worlds apart, so I have little personal knowledge of their food. Between midday and 5 pm (or later, if they are in the mood) a scorched burger can be yours as can pork and chicken sausages, borsch with smetana and pelmeni in broth: standard Russian fare for which you can expect to pay no more than 300 roubles.
In refreshing contrast to all the craft beer joints with their Deep Purple and Green Day standards, the soundtrack to Kruzhka bars are youthful and townie friendly  Russian lounge hip-hop.
On every wall is fixed a TV screen which, when not nagging you about some dismal soccer match, is either switched on to Bridge T.V.  giving us up-to-the-minute European pop or showing promotional slides of people Having a Good Time in Krushka bars.
It is no surprise to discover their brand template -the menus, the colour scheme, the funky orange rugby shirts that the staff wear, the butch furniture and glasses – is to be found among all their bars .But there is still room for variety.
The Chistye Prudy Kruzhka resembles a sanitised German bierkeller whereas the one in Prospekt Mira a chilled living room, with a hookah lounge next door. In terms of buildings, the Partisanskaya Krushka, on Izmailovskaya Shosse, resembles a Japanese temple plonked without ceremony right in front of the Alfia hotel.

Sports intrusion.
That Kruzhka is a sports bar is something that I like to forget. Many an evening there has been besmirched by the goggleboxes showing green pitches with screaming commentary and by non-regular punters jumping up and down bawling `Davai! Davai!`
If, as the old saying has it, `Golf is a good walk ruined` – then… football is sure as hell a good drink ruined!
But,when without the sound and fury of penalty shoot outs, a Kruzhka bar can feel like an unpretentious haven. The interiors are well-maintained and never either too chilly or sweltering. You can get mellow there with no questions asked.
As my companion for many years, the places have their own snapshots of memories.
That time a friend of mine wanted to order a non-bloody beef burger. We spent some time looking up the Russian phrase that would get this idea across and said it to a waiter who, lo and behold, returned…with a chicken burger!
That chubby lawyer who accosted me once as he downed expensive champagne in his two piece suit, to drown that bad time a woman at work had given him…
The group of old dears who came in for an impromptu vodka party and, without asking, had the rap music switched to Soviet period ballads in their honour….
That false summer last June when a hired band was playing on the patio in front of the Prospekt Mira Kruzhka. They were cranking out a decent version of `Sunshine Reggae` and a random beaming young woman from the audience joined in on the tambourine….
The Kruzhkka bars, amenable to all and somehow very Russian, form a vital part of post-Soviet Moscow daily life.

 

Featured image: reutov.biglion.ru

Krushka site: www.kruzhka.ru