An estimated 38,000 people queued for hours in Moscow’s Pushkin Square to buy a burger,a testament to the seemingly unstoppable rise of western-style capitalism in the communist-dominated Eastern Bloc.
The physical and cultural barriers that had divided the east and west for decades were suddenly crumbling.
“McDonald’s was more than the opening of a simple restaurant,” McDonald’s Russia chief executive Marc Carena told Voice of America in 2020. “It came to symbolise the entire opening of the USSR to the West.”
Now visitors to Pushkin Square will no longer be able to buy a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder after the company announced it was temporarily closing all of its 850 stores scattered throughout Russia.
Just as the arrival of the fast food giant in Moscow marked the beginning of a new era in geopolitics,so does its departure 32 years later.
McDonald’s decision formed part of an,as corporate chief executives join politicians in seeking to punish Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine.
Facing intense public pressure to sever ties with Russia,Coca-Cola,PepsiCo and Starbucks announced on Wednesday that they were suspending operations in the country. It came on the same day US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the purchase of Russian oil,gas and coal.
In an email to staff,PepsiCo chief executive Ramon Laguarta noted the company had entered the Russian market at the height of the Cold War,saying it had “helped create common ground between the United States and the Soviet Union”.
Unilever – a major producer of food and hygiene products – announced it had paused all imports from and exports to Russia. Yum Brands,which has more than 1000 restaurants in the country,said it was suspending operation of company-owned KFC outlets and would soon close its Pizza Hut stores.
A day earlier jeans maker Levi’s announced it was suspending all sales in Russia – another symbolically powerful moment.
During the Cold War,Levi jeans became synonymous with American capitalism – so much so that authorities in Eastern Germany banned them from being sold. For young people living under communism and yearning for freedom,wearing them was as much a political statement as a fashion choice.
Similarly,the explosion of luxury stores in Russia in the early 1990s represented the arrival of a new era dominated by oligarchs. The speedy transfer of state-owned assets to private firms after the arrival of democracy enriched an elite cadre of businessmen and their wives. Many took delight in flaunting their newfound wealth. Soviet-style asceticism was out,conspicuous consumption was in.
Now Russian shoppers,accustomed to an abundance of capitalist choices,are confronting a new period of Soviet-style scarcity.
A raft of luxury goods stores including Louis Vuitton,Chanel,Gucci and Prada have announced the closure of all their stores in Russia. So has cosmetics giant Estée Lauder.
Even though they are and banned from accessing independent journalism,the business blockade makes clear to Russians their country has become a pariah state – one increasingly isolated from the Western world it once rushed to embrace.
Just three decades after the end of the previous one,a new cold war has begun.
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