It takes two to wash dishes: community building in anti-cafes

In 2011, Moscow cultural activist Ivan Mitin opened a venue called Ziferblat (‘clockface’ in Russian). Dissatisfied with overpricing, intolerance to lingering, and everlasting pressure to consume in contemporary cafés, he came up with an idea of a pay-per-minute multifunctional public space where people could socialise, work, attend or organise a meet-up or a cultural event, use open kitchen with free refreshments and nibbles, or just chill out and do nothing. Since 2012, Ziferblat’s look-alikes, mostly categorised by their owners as ‘anticafés’, ‘time cafés’, or ‘pay-per-minute cafés’, have been proliferating in Russia and other post-soviet countries, followed by continental Europe, North America, and Asia. Meanwhile, by May 2017 Ziferblat has opened eight more branches in Russia, two in Ukraine, one in Slovenia, five in the UK, and one more in Mongolia.

Drawing upon media texts analysis, staff and guest interviews, and multi-site ethnography in four Ziferblat venues in Moscow, London, and Manchester, my dissertation explores what kind of space anti-café is, how and by whom are such places typically produced and used, and how does this phenomenon fit into current debates in urban sociology and human geography (social life in urban public space, placemaking and production of space, participatory and DIY culture, sharing economy, etc.). This paper will focus on social interaction and community-building in Ziferblat – I will present some key findings from my fieldwork and discuss how different spatial, social, and cultural factors construct sociability in anti-cafés, varying from subtle ties to more in-depth communication.