McDonald's in Russia

• 1. Introduction

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  McDonald's in Russia opened for the first time on Moscow's Pushkin Square on the 31st of January 1990. Roughly 38,000 people showed up, waiting in lines that stretched for hours. The turnout shattered company records. George Cohon, the president of McDonald's Canada, had spent fourteen years securing the agreements that made it possible. The American chain's arrival at one of Moscow's most recognizable public squares carried a weight that extended well beyond hamburgers. Why it had been kept out for so long, what finally opened the door, and what ultimately forced it out are questions this story will answer. The answers begin with a failed Olympic proposal.

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• 2. The Olympic Opportunity

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  Ahead of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics, the Associated Press noted that the Soviet capital had no fast food for Western visitors. The agency reported that "dinner or lunch can take hours and the service and food vary widely." McDonald's of Canada saw the Games as an opening. Beginning in 1976, the company sought permission to place two portable restaurants near Luzhniki Stadium, the primary Olympic venue. The proposal attracted criticism in the Soviet magazine The New Times, but negotiations with the Moscow Olympic Organizing Committee advanced regardless and came close to a finalized agreement.

  Moscow mayor Vladimir Promyslov ended those discussions in autumn 1979 with a veto. He did so even while authorizing hundreds of other Western companies to serve as official Olympic suppliers. The 1980 Games opened and closed without a McDonald's anywhere in Moscow. The company's exclusion would last another six years, until a new set of Soviet economic policies created a different kind of opening.

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• 3. Negotiating the Opening

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  Mikhail Gorbachev introduced perestroika in 1985 and glasnost in 1986, both policies framed as overtures to Western investment. Cohon, who had been authorized by the parent company to lead a new attempt, moved quickly. He signed two preliminary agreements with the Moscow city council in November 1987, announcing the plans publicly at the same moment. The arrangement called for Soviet citizens to fill the bulk of the workforce. An additional 50 to 75 Russian-Canadian or Russian-British employees would be brought in to help manage the transition.

  Cohon faced skepticism. Some pointed to the Soviet Union's chronic meat shortages as a reason to doubt whether consistent product quality could be maintained. Whether the supply chain could support McDonald's standards, and whether Soviet customers would actually show up, were questions two more years of planning would settle.

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• 4. Three Decades of Growth

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  By 1997, the Russian chain had expanded to 21 locations. Cohon visited the country eight times that year, a frequency that reflected how central the market had become to the company's ambitions. The chain's stated goal for 1998 was to open 30 more restaurants.

  In January 2020, the original Pushkin Square location was redesigned to mark its 30th anniversary. The renovation was carried out by Landini Associates. That restaurant had been refurbished once before, in 2010. Delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the exterior portion of the 2020 project into 2021. By 2022-84 percent of McDonald's locations in Russia were corporate-owned, operating through two Russian subsidiaries: McDonald's LLC and CJSC Moscow-McDonald's. The remaining locations were franchisee-operated. The depth of that infrastructure, built over more than three decades, would make the announcement on the 8th of March 2022 all the more consequential.

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• 5. The March Suspension

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  On the 8th of March 2022, McDonald's announced it was suspending all operations in Russia in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The move halted roughly 850 restaurants. The chain had 62,000 employees in Russia at that point, along with hundreds of suppliers and millions of daily customers. McDonald's committed to continuing to pay all of its Russian employees throughout the shutdown.

  A BBC reporter who attended the closing of the first McDonald's in Moscow described the atmosphere as solemn. People came simply to watch. The reporter called it "hugely symbolic," saying the original opening had taken place "when iron curtains were crumbling and Russia was embracing the West." Reuters described the closure in similar terms, framing it as a sign of American capitalism retreating from Russian soil.

  On the 18th of March, ten days after the initial announcement, McDonald's remained unable to close certain locations in airports and transit stations. In Russia, the Ronald McDonald House Charities had been expected to remain active even as the restaurants shut. By the 16th of May, McDonald's announced it would exit Russia entirely.

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• 6. The Rebrand

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  On the 27th of May 2022, McDonald's agreed to sell all of its Russian restaurants to a local licensee named Alexander Govor. Patent filings made during the transition showed two names under consideration for the replacement brand: "Fun and Tasty" and "The Same One." Duma state speaker Vyacheslav Volodin responded to the announcement. "McDonald's announced that they are closing. Well, good, close down! Tomorrow there won't be McDonald's, but Uncle Vanya's," he was quoted as saying. A trademark was filed under that name shortly after, featuring the Golden Arches turned on their side with a line through them. The name Govor chose was Vkusno i tochka, which translates as "Simply Delicious." The chain offered substitutes for every item on the original menu, with most dishes rebranded rather than replaced entirely.

  In November 2022, McDonald's licensee in neighboring Belarus also stopped operating under the McDonald's name. The company cited "extensive local supply issues." Those restaurants became Vkusno i tochka as well. On the 1st of December 2022, the last nine McDonald's locations in Russia closed permanently. They were at train stations and airports in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Under the terms of the sale, McDonald's retained a 15-year option to repurchase its former Russian restaurants from Govor's chain.

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