AP quotes Professor Eileen Kane on McDonald’s withdrawal from Russia
Just a few months after the Berlin Wall fell, a gleaming new McDonald’s restaurant opened in the middle of Moscow. It was the first American fast-food restaurant to enter the Soviet Union, and its opening reflected the new political openness of the era.
Now, in reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, McDonald’s has closed all of its nearly 850 locations in Russia.
Eileen Kane, associate professor of history and director of the Global Islamic Studies Program at Connecticut College, told the Associated Press this week that she visited the original McDonald’s often in 1991 and 1992 when she was an exchange student at Moscow State University.
Kane, a historian of modern Europe who specializes in Russian/ Soviet and post-Soviet history, said she found the fast-food restaurant a striking contrast from the rest of the country, which was suffering frequent food shortages as the Soviet Union collapsed.
“McDonald’s was bright and colorful and they never ran out of anything. It was like a party atmosphere,” Kane told the AP.
The article was published by dozens of major news outlets and reached international audiences in Australia, Canada, India, Israel, Japan and New Zealand.
