FILE – Hundreds of Muscovites line up outside the first McDonald’s restaurant in the Soviet Union on its opening day, in Moscow, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 1990. Two months after the Berlin Wall fell, another powerful symbol opened its doors in the middle of Moscow: a gleaming new McDonald’s. It was the first American fast-food restaurant to enter the Soviet Union. But now, McDonald’s is temporarily closing its 850 restaurants in Russia in response to the Ukraine invasion.
FILE – Russians wait in line outside a McDonald’s fast food restaurant in Moscow in 1991. Two months after the Berlin Wall fell, another powerful symbol opened its doors in the middle of Moscow: a gleaming new McDonald’s. It was the first American fast-food restaurant to enter the Soviet Union. But now, McDonald’s is temporarily closing its 850 restaurants in Russia in response to the Ukraine invasion.
FILE – People are seen in a McDonald’s restaurant at Moscow’s Pushkin Square, on Feb. 1, 2010. Two months after the Berlin Wall fell, another powerful symbol opened its doors in the middle of Moscow: a gleaming new McDonald’s. It was the first American fast-food restaurant to enter the Soviet Union. But now, McDonald’s is temporarily closing its 850 restaurants in Russia in response to the Ukraine invasion.
FILE – People walk past Moscow’s first McDonalds a day before its opening, in Moscow’s Pushkin Square, Jan. 30, 1990. Two months after the Berlin Wall fell, McDonald’s opened its doors in the middle of Moscow. It was the first American fast-food restaurant to enter the Soviet Union. But now, McDonald’s is temporarily closing its 850 restaurants in Russia in response to the Ukraine invasion.
Two months after the Berlin Wall fell, another powerful symbol opened its doors in the middle of Moscow: a gleaming new McDonald’s.
It was the first American fast-food restaurant to enter the Soviet Union, reflecting the new political openness of the era. For Vlad Vexler, who as a 9-year-old waited in a two-hour line to enter the restaurant near Moscow’s Pushkin Square on its opening day in January 1990, it was a gateway to the utopia he imagined the West to be.
“We thought that life there was magical and there were no problems,” Vexler said.
So it was all the more poignant for Vexler when McDonald’s announced it would temporarily close that store and nearly 850 others in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“That McDonald’s is a sign of optimism that in the end didn’t materialize,” said Vexler, a political philosopher and author who now lives in London. “Now that Russia is entering the period of contraction, isolation and impoverishment, you look back at these openings and think about what might have been.”
McDonald’s said in a statement that “at this juncture, it’s impossible to predict when we might be able to reopen our restaurants in Russia.” But it is continuing to pay its 62,500 Russian employees. The company said this week that it expects the closure to cost around $50 million per month.
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