McDonald’s and the Opening and Closing of Russia? with special guest Kristy Ironside
The opening of the first McDonald’s in Moscow on January 31, 1990, was widely seen as proof of the Soviet Union opening up to the outside world after years of Cold War isolation. McDonald’s decision to pull out of Russia within months of its full-scale attack on Ukraine in early 2022 was thus naturally seen as the end of an era. This talk will look at how we got from Point A to Point B. Why did Soviet leaders agree to allow McDonald’s in, first as a joint venture with the Moscow city soviet, and what did they hope to get out of it?
Robert A. Jones '59 Conference Room