Alfi - my host in Kazan, took me to a cafe called Clock Face (that's CLOCK Ben, not CO..), It's on the 5th floor of a building with the shit kicked out of it plus there was no front door so it's pretty difficult to stumble upon. The concept is sweet; you arrive, your name is signed on the board and you chose a clock out of the cabinet. You can drink and eat snacks to your hearts content because you simply pay for the time you spend there, usually 2 rubbles per minute.
There's a book shelf with 100great books and if you donate others you can get free time. There are often meetings, discussions, readings and small gigs. Networking is done through social media like VK, Russia's version of Facebook.
So the objective of the cafe is simple; to create an environment in which people feel comfortable. You can read, use it as a space to work (free wifi), swing on a hammock, sprawl on a couch, throw a record on or play some games - all the time trying to see how many free biscuits you can stuff in your mouth at one time. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that would be the scenario if something like this existed in the UK, the system would get seriously abused.
But here in the good'ol USSR, it works a treat and feels more like a social centre, a chill out lounge, a front-room. I went on to visit anti-cafes in various other cities, all with a forward thinking attitude to social spaces. The original Clockface cafe was set up by Ivan Mitin in Moscow and it's spreading success is testimony to how Russians like to do things their own way and also represents a really positive aspect of their culture - people like to share and as a result are not inherently greedy, like us.
