Located 650 kilometres southeast of Moscow and with a population of just 300,000, Saransk was a surprise World Cup host choice because it lacked necessary infrastructure and its city’s club was languishing in the lower reaches of the Russian football leagues.
After building a new 45,000-capacity all-seater stadium, it hosted four group stage matches, with the highlight a clash between Iran and Cristiano Ronaldo-led Portugal, which ended in a 1-1 draw.
The quiet city had never seen such an exuberant party, with tens of thousands of overseas fans wrapped in their national colours. But no playoff matches will be played there and the locals are settling back into normal life.
Alexander Moskinsky, 56, a manager at a construction firm, said the World Cup put Saransk on the global map.
“No one knew about Saransk even in Russia, let alone across the world. Now, everyone has heard about it,” he said.
He admitted that he was not a big football fan, but went to the match between Peru and Denmark.
“I didn’t care about football, all I watched were the fans, especially those from Peru in their unusual outfits.”
Mikhail Chikin, 53, a bank clerk, said it had been a “fairytale” experience.
“We will never see such games as Peru against Denmark,” he said. “It was a historic, large-scale event, but the city withstood it.”
Saransk is the capital of the Russian federal subject of Mordovia, a predominately agricultural region, and does not benefit from the petrodollars showered on oil-producing regions. The World Cup was therefore a welcome boost to the economy.
“With each year of preparations for the World Cup, Saransk improved more and more. For us, the World Cup is everything, the economy and a better quality of life for people,” Mordovia Governor Vladimir Volkov told Reuters before the last game the city hosted, between Panama and Tunisia, on Thursday.
“I already feel a little twinge of sadness. Everything is bubbling here, but silence will fall in the morning suddenly and it will be unusual,” he said, while walking around food stalls in a city square.
“Great sadness will fall upon us, but we have to get back to work, we will have our own “World Cup”, which is the harvest, it is very important for us.”