The Republic of Mordovia is located in the centre of European part of Russia in the basin of the Volga River at the crossroads of the most important routes from the Сentre to the Urals, Siberia, Volga region, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The territory of the republic is 26.2 thousand sq. km. Saransk, the capital of the republic, has the population of 336.1 thousand people. The distance to Moscow is 642 km.

Mordovia is connected with transport communications with all regions of Russia. The length of automobile roads exceeds 5 thousand km.

Operational length of railroads is 0.5 thousand km. The town Ruzaevka (25 km from Saransk) is a large railway junction of the Kuibyshev railroad. An airport equipped with the landing strip of 2801 m. long and 42 m. wide capable of receiving air-planes of tonnage up to 100 tons is located in Saransk.

In the territory of Mordovia several parts of the Moksha, Vad, Sura Rivers are marked with the deposits of the unique soil treasure – black fumed oak. The utmost significance for the economic complex belongs to the deposits of construction materials of cretaceous sediments. The largest among them are reserves of marly-cretaceous mining used for production of high-quality cement.

The choice of clays is various. They are brick, fire clay, pottery, for faience production, etc. Peat is of economic significance. A spacious deposit of diatomite with the total stocks of 6.6 million cubic meters has been discovered in the republic. Sizable deposits of sulphate-chlorine mineral water of khilovsky type are in stock. Due to its properties this water can be applied in the course of treatment of chronic gastritis, colitis, liver diseases, etc. Daily water pick-out presently makes nearly 30 cubic meters and extraction volume can be significantly developed.