It was 4:00 am, and a handful of Russians had begun lininging outside the frigid cold of the building, hours before the opening.
When the doors opened, hundreds of hungry, wealthy Muscovites flocked to enjoy their first taste of this mysterious creation: the Big Mac.
It was January 1990 and McDonalds was opening its first restaurant in the Soviet Union, becoming one of the few Western companies that broke the Iron Curtain in its last days as it slowly opened up the world.
At that time, the Russians were hungry. In a literal sense. Stores often ran out of food and lacked most of the products available in Western lands. McDonald’s food costs half a day, but “unusual … and delicious,” a local woman told a CBC News reporter at the opening, after trying on her first burger.
“We are all hungry in this city,” said the woman. “We need some of these places – nothing in our stores or restaurants.” McDonald’s finally had to keep it open a few hours ago during its official closing time due to high demand, and it delivered 30,000 large customers on its opening day – a record of America’s most popular series.
Well, in the 32 years since then, Russia has become a capitalist city, teeming with thousands of well-known Western products and foreign investment. But in the weeks following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack on his neighbor Ukraine despite international condemnation, most of these products have closed their doors, temporarily closed or left the country.
The scenes of the 1990s are thus almost repeated three decades later, though in a very different context. As McDonald’s announced the temporary closure of more than 800 restaurants in Russia at the beginning of March, ahead of this week’s decision to leave this week, long lines appeared outside its facilities as Russians came to find what could be the last gold rush. burgers and fries.
A Russian man even handcuffed himself to the door of Moscow’s McDonald’s crying, shouting “Closing is an act of hostility toward me and my fellow citizens!” before arrest.
‘Great symbolic significance’
For Bakhti Nishanov, a Eurasian specialist who grew up in the Soviet Union, travel is emotionally devastating.
“It’s really weird how I feel about this. It’s almost like leaving the country, ”he told.
“This is a very important metaphor: McDonald’s visit to Russia, then part of the Soviet Union, was a global signal that Russia was open for business. The company leaving Russia is a clear sign that the country is no longer the place you want to be as a business, ”said Nishanov.
“I started reading about McDonald’s in Russia in a youth magazine called Yunniy Tehnik,” relates Nishanov. “I was amazed and intrigued by the text and the idea that someone, for a very small fee, could be part of the American culture McDonald’s represented.”
“For the Russian generation, McDonald’s – often referred to as MakDak – was a thrill,” he added. “It is clearly connected with American culture, yet a large part of their daily lives, and, somehow, outsiders or strangers than many other species.”
Lots of staff and a lot of money
Economically, too, travel is important – McDonald’s employs 62,000 people across Russia. With hundreds of foreign companies leaving the country, the number of missing jobs is estimated at hundreds of thousands.
The burger chain is about to sell its business, which includes 847 restaurants, stating that “the humanitarian crisis caused by the Ukrainian war, and the unpredictable working conditions, led McDonald’s to conclude that continued business ownership in Russia is not long-lasting.
Chief executive Chris Kempczinski said he was proud of all the company’s employees employed in Russia and that the decision was “very difficult.” He also said that workers would continue to be paid until the business was sold and that “workers would be hired in the future for any potential buyer.”
McDonald’s exit from Russia will be between $ 1.2 billion and $ 1.4 billion, the company said. Just closing its restaurants in the first few weeks in Russia has greatly increased its revenue, costing $ 127 million last quarter. Together with 108 restaurants in Ukraine, Russian and Ukrainian business generated about 9% of McDonald’s revenue by 2021.
‘Crucial soft diplomacy’ during the Cold War
Politically, golden bows also go a long way, says Tricia Starks, professor of history at the University of Arkansas and author of the upcoming book “Cigarettes and Soviets.”
“The American way of using it was an important means of communicating soft-diplomacy in the Cold War … informing the Soviets about American standards was another aspect of the war,” Starks said. A few other brands took over this role in the USSR before McDonald’s did, namely Pepsi in 1972 and Marlboro in 1976.
But McDonalds, unlike Pepsi’s can or a packet of Marlboro cigarettes, “was a deep-rooted experience of capitalism,” he said.
“From the moment you entered, it was completely different from a Soviet restaurant. You are greeted with a smile and a shout of ‘Can I help you?’ The products have been consistent and consistently used. The burgers were hot! ”
This alarmed Soviet residents, many of whom expressed confusion when workers smiled at them. “When I smile, people ask what is going on, they think I’m laughing,” a Russian worker who was on the day of McDonald’s opening in 1990 told a reporter.
“When you were done, a worker would come and whisk away the trash, and the showplace on Pushkin Square was kept clean despite the thousands who would come by through the day — some of them waiting hours to spend a full month’s wages on dinner for a family of four,” Starks described, noting that customer service was simply not a concept in the USSR. “Service was a side product of a McDonald’s experience.”
‘Thank you for all your sanctions’
Not all Russians feel bad about the golden arches leaving.
“Hello Americans … We want to thank you for all your sanctions, for taking away from our country Coca Cola, KFC, McDonald’s and all that sh–. Now by summer we will be healthy, strong and without ass fat,” Russian influencer and comedian Natasha Krasnova wrote in an Instagram post in March that was viewed more than 5 million times.
Many Russians have encouraged replacing Western chains with Russian-made brands, and at this point are perfectly capable of making their own burgers and other fast food products. There has also been a push by some to ditch American-style food as a whole in favor of local dishes, as much of the country rejects Western symbols out of patriotism.
Many Russians feel bitter about having to deal with the consequences of a war they did not choose. Those consequences pale in comparison to the horror being dealt to Ukraine, where thousands of civilians have been killed by Russian bombs and numerous cities reduced to rubble.
But as the war rumbles on and Russia becomes increasingly isolated by international sanctions, time will tell how many Russians will abandon their country in pursuit of the more open world they knew, and how many will choose allegiance to the state, turning against that world.
For Nishanov, it’s not just about McDonald’s, but something bigger.
“McDonald’s leaving Russia hits many of my generation differently,” he said, “I think because it represented — and I know this sounds dramatic — hope and optimism. The company leaving confirms Putin’s Russia is a place devoid of those two things.”