Inside Russia and McDonalds
Constantine from Inside Russia visits McDonalds for the last time
I forgot to post this in my original post on my Ryan’s Reading List Post. Below is Constantine’s video about his last visit to a Russian McDonalds and his story of trying to go to McDonalds in Soviet Russia in the 90’s. Constantine’s channel can be found here.
I was taken the McDonald's in Moscow-- the recently opened one in Pushkin Square, only a few weeks (very early 1992) after the collapse of the Soviet Union. . I remember the pride and excitement of my hosts. The store was close to a memorial to Pushkin, the greatest Russian poet (every Russian schoolchild has read Puskin the way that most American kids have read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), so the siting of the store as a big concession to modernity by the government who was then and now, pathologically xenophobic. The experience reminded me of the power of Free Enterprise and freedom to make choices, including the choice to pick up the tab. A cultural bridge was built and crossed over that meal, one that Im sad and angry that Putin has closed and demolished.
Thanks to Konstantin for the memory. It is a very Russian memory; vivid and meloncholic.
Top bloke buy him a coffee when u can.