In the heart of the historic center of Moscow, in a Pushkin square covered with a thin film of snow, hundreds of Muscovites are impatient. They will soon bite into their first hamburger! “If you can’t go to America, come to Moscow McDonald’s”had fun the brand, in its first television spot. Obviously, word of mouth worked. Some have made the crane in front of the restaurant since 4 a.m. This January 31, 1990, the American fast food chain McDonald’s is about to open its first establishment in the Soviet Union.
Usually, the long tails that wind in front of Moscow stores only report one thing: the food shortage. The same year, there were still rationing tickets in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). But in Place Pouchkine Moscow, despite the greyness curtains, it is another energy that dominates: a thrill of anticipation.
“We are used to waiting, sometimes for days”smiles a client. For the occasion, McDonald’s did not do things by half: 700 interior places, 200 outdoor places, 630 employees (out of 30,000 applications!), Frigos that are full to crack. After fourteen years of fierce negotiations with local councilors, it was therefore in Moscow, “workers’ paradise” and capital of communism, that the largest McDonald’s restaurant in the world will open.
Come as you are (even communist)
When the doors of the brand finally open, at 10 a.m., it is the rush. Hundreds of Moscowes rush to the boxes, inspecting a colorful menu that evokes the heyday of Stalinist propaganda. Red and garish yellow swear in a capital all in shades of gray. Too beautiful to be true? “The restaurants of Soviet Union are renowned for their revision service, their deplorable hygiene, their intimidating doormen, their deafening orchestras and the absence of half of the menu dishes”says a journalist at the Washington Post present at the opening.
As soon as served, customers display delightful mines, seduced by the speed of service, the politeness of employees and the diversity of options. Hamburgers, portions of fries and milk-shakes flow like hotcakes. For Muscovites, this atypical menu has a luxury and ban scent – a Big Mac then costs half the daily salary of a Sovéitic worker – who changes the sad pittance of stolovayathese public canteens where local workers usually flock.
At the end of the first day of operation, the administrators do the accounts: 34,000 burgers were served. Annuctor sign of the end of a world? The New York Times is not mistaken, titling the next day “East upheaval: McDonald’s opens in Moscow”. In France, the event opened the “8 pm Journal” of the five and its presenter Guillaume Durand adds by speaking of “Cultural revolution between two slices of bread”. Just the vision of the golden arches a stone’s throw from the Kremlin signals a flip-flop in the relationships between the East and the West. Now nothing will ever be as before.
A Big Mac in the Soviets – On January 30, 1990, the first McDonald’s in USSR opens in Moscow. Eminently symbolic, this event embodies the opening of the country to capitalism. More info in our historical context:
➡️ https://t.co/xoblh3clzp pic.twitter.com/yohhinvqo1– Lumnienseign (@Lumnienseign) January 30, 2021
Thank you Gorbachev?
In more ways than one, the opening of the first McDonald’s in Soviet land perfectly illustrates the policy of reforms, transparency and reconstruction – the famous glasnost And perestroika-, Inaugurated by Mikhail Gorbachev, secretary general of the Soviet Communist Party since 1985. A turn to 180 degrees after years of censorship, repression and planned economy. Under its supervision, we bleed the bulky state apparatus, we liberalize the company, we democratize the institutions. So why not install an American fast food a stone’s throw from the red square? Mikhail Gorbachev himself participated in the negotiations which led to the opening of the brand.
Admittedly, the Soviets had already had a taste of the calories Made in USA When the Pepsi-Co brand had established itself in the USSR in 1972 (in return, the American market had opened up to Stolitchnaïa vodka). But the opening of a rapid restaurant, emblem of unbridled capitalism and American imperialism, announces an unprecedented geopolitical earthquake … which statistics do not deny. In its three Muscovite brands, McDonald’s will have served 80 million Soviet customers and then Russians during its first five years of operation, more than there have been visitors to the Lenin mausoleum, located in Red Square.
The predictions of journalists were justified. At the end, the Soviet model ended up shattering in 1991. On December 26, the USSR was dissolved and Mikhail Gorbachev resigned the day before. The last secretary general will try to relaunch himself in the Russian presidential election of 1996, but he will not harvest only 0.5% of the vote. He consoled himself by appearing two years later in an advertisement for … Pizza Hut, another famous American fast food brand, having followed the path opened by McDonald’s.
