The first McDonald's in the Soviet Union opened today in 1990, serving 30,000 customers who'd lined up to get a taste of their first Big Mac. It was a sign of the wider cultural opening of the country going on at the time, known as glasnost, which now apparently included American fast food.
The opening of the first location in the well-trafficked Pushkin Square in Moscow was ironically a project of McDonald's of Canada. Employees were Soviets but several Canadians and British people were sent to help get the effort started.
The food didn't come cheap, costing several times most people's daily wages. Still, at a time the country's government and economy were on shaky ground, the restaurant was still able to seat several hundred people at a time. Within less than two years, the Soviet Union broke up, becoming several republics.
You can see pictures from the day at the Moscow Times and read more about it from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
