Barmagl0t week - Russian blog at italki #2 Today I'll tell you about fast-food in Russia, its role and history and some funny and interesting facts. McDonald’s came in Russia with the beginning of "perestroyka". The 1st restaurant was opened in 1990. The rental fee for the place for the 1st restaurant was 1rubl/year and still it is. It's about 3,3 cents - an amazing price for Moscow today, when the rental fee for 1 sq. meter is more than 1000 USD! During the first time McDonald’s opened its restaurants only in million cities. But there are only 12 cities in Russia with a population more than 1mln. Today they reduce the criteria level to 300 thousands and now it has 255 restaurants in 42 cities and towns. The 300ths city in Russia usually is called country town. Such towns usually are centers of small regions. Such town has 1 or 2 theaters, cinemas and a few trade centers. No underground, no airport, no traffic jams. Do you know about Big Mac Index - an index showing the price of the Big Max all over the world? The cheapest Big Mac is in China - 1,9 USD. In Russia it costs 2,3 USD, in USA - 3,7 and in Norway - 7,2 USD. So, it's not a high price. Russian people like to call McDonald’s as "a net of free WCs", but they usually visit it with family on weekends. Why I'm talking about McDonald’s so much? Actually it's the only international fast-food company in Russia. Burger King and Dunkin Donuts have just 2 or 3 little cafes in trade centers in Moscow - nobody knows about them. KFC has a local name Rostiks - it's a place with a terrible service and a cheap beer. Starbucks came recently and it has just a few cafes in Moscow. By the way nobody believed in the success of Sturbucks, because in Russia the cafe is a place when you can eat, smoke and drink. But Sturbucks became a place for advanced young people who use Facebook and Twitter and foreign tourists. In the next time I'll tell you about tradition Russian food. What do you know about it?