Only at train stations and airports should individual restaurants initially continue to operate under the US logo because of special franchise agreements that are not easy to cancel.
The new owner, entrepreneur Alexander Gowor, now wants to reopen all 850 branches across the country within two months. He has already operated 25 McDonald’s branches in Siberia in recent years. Gowor, who once made his fortune in the mining and oil industries, is contractually obligated to keep the existing employees on the same terms for at least two years. Meanwhile, Gowor is no longer allowed to use the McDonald’s brand symbols.
Moscow’s Mayor Sergey Sobyanin also came to Pushkin Square on this opening day – which symbolically coincides with the “Day of Russia” holiday. Sobyanin praises “Lecker und Punkt” as a Russian model for success.
New chain to prove Russian independence
McDonald’s has always been considered American, but actually “everything is ours, Russian,” he says, also referring to the Russian farmers from whom the US company used to get the ingredients for its branches in Russia. Politicians loyal to the Kremlin keep emphasizing that Western sanctions cannot harm Russia and that it will even emerge stronger. The new chain should prove that.
In the early 1990s, however, the opening of the first McDonald’s branches was also a sign of change and departure in Russia. And so the new Russian “McDonald’s” now also stands for the hardened fronts between Moscow and the West.
The comeback in Russian garb also attracts many older people. You may have witnessed the opening of the very first Russian McDonald’s at this very location more than three decades ago, when the line was up to 500 meters long. Now the rush is less, some say.