A Russian patriotic fast-food chain planned by two well-known movie directors and backed by President Vladimir Putin has changed its name to "Yedim kak Doma" ("We're Eating Like at Home") instead of "Yedim Doma!" ("We're Eating at Home!") in an abrupt about-face after over a month of intense media attention.
One of the directors, the award-winning Nikita Mikhalkov, made the announcement in an interview published Thursday by news agency TASS. He did not say why the name for the restaurant had been changed.
The project is designed as a patriotic initiative, serving food made from domestic products. Putin, when told of the idea earlier, "responded enthusiastically," Mikhalkov's partner and brother, Andrei Konchalovsky told The Moscow Times earlier.
According to Mikhalkov, the chain will be launched in the Moscow and Kaluga regions in about a year and a half, TASS reported.
Mikhalkov also added that "there is another idea, but it is too early to talk about it now," the news agency quoted the director as saying.
The brand "Yedim Doma" under which it was initially planned to operate the fast-food chain, belongs to Konchalovsky's wife Yulia Vysotskaya, who presents a television cooking show under the same name.
In April, newspaper Kommersant reported that Konchalovsky and Mikhalkov requested in a letter to Putin an investment of 982 million rubles ($17 million) to create a fast-food chain that will "promote import substitution and create an alternative to Western fast-food chains."
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