McDonald’s in Russia Turns 30

The restaurant’s journey to opening its first Russian branch was a 14-year endeavor. George Cohon, the head of McDonald’s in Canada who was responsible for bringing the golden arches to central Moscow, had been working on the deal since 1976. He told the BBC he originally wanted to get the contract for McDonald’s to serve burgers at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but “at the highest level of government, there was a huge fight” and the U.S.S.R. pulled out, believing it would be a “national embarrassment” for an American fast food chain to be present at the Soviet Union’s Olympics.

Muscovites started queuing at 4:30 a.m. for their chance to get a taste of the famous American fast food. McDonald’s sold 34,000 burgers on its first day — smashing the burger chain’s previous first-day record of 9,100.

Due to Soviet restrictions on imports, McDonald’s had to build a huge new processing site on the outskirts of Moscow to produce the food for its first Russian outlet. The site was not connected to the electricity grid, however, and the Soviet authorities were not quick about installing the necessary power cables. Cohon complained directly to the Soviet ambassador in Canada about the slow start, and the ambassador called in hundreds of Soviet soldiers to start digging trenches and laying power lines to the plant.

Around 27,000 Russians applied to work at the first McDonald’s in Russia, with 630 eventually hired. Recruiters selected the best and brightest, including those with foreign-language skills, and trained them to maintain an American-style smile when serving customers. “It was crazy,” recalled Svetlana Polyakova, who was working in the kitchen in January 1990 and is now the public relations director for McDonald’s in Russia. “I saw faces that were really surprised by the friendliness of the cashiers. For Soviet people to hear ‘Please, come here,’ ‘Thank you’ and ‘Come again’ — it was so rare in the Soviet service culture.”

McDonald’s was forced to scrap plans to mark the 30th anniversary Friday by selling Big Macs at the same price they were in 1990 — three rubles ($0.05) — due to coronavirus fears, as the Russian government urged companies to avoid public events which could draw excessive crowds.

“It’s very beautiful,” a young Russian man trying a Big Mac for the first time told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at the time, “but I expected more.”

When it opened, McDonald’s burgers were something of a luxury purchase: A Big Mac, fries and a drink cost the equivalent of half a day’s wages for the average worker.