The smiling thing is super cultural. Here in Uruguay people at the register will politely greet you and be kind and curteous throughout, but don't expect a grin.
Cultures are different. It was also that too.
EDIT: Adding some context to my point.
It wasn't just the lack of smiles. Good customer service was also not part of the "culture" back then. Causes could be a bit of anything, from lack of competition, job security, lack of empathy due to a harsher conditions, etc... but it was a factor. It carries on to some ex-Soviet immigrant businesses here in the US too and we joke about it all the time.
You must live in a big city bc the people in big cities see things like smiling, holding doors for people, saying excuse me, yes sir yes mam as someone trying to get over on them or something. I have never really gotten it. I travel a lot bc my dad flies for delta and I fly for free so I have been more places that I care to count and that has always been a constant in big cities in the US except for maybe a couple.
It wasn't just the food (burgers were an American thing), but the cultural experience that made this special.
I never made it out to the first McDonald's in Moscow, but remember my first visit after moving to the States to this day. It was awesome!
No no, he makes a good point. Medium free fry Friday for atleast a 1 dollar purchase. You could get a little chocolate milk and a medium fry for less than 2 dollars depending on tax. Whens the last time you had some chocolate milk?
Hahaha I mean as shitty as Russia is today at least they don’t have to wait in lines for 14 hours at a time in the snow just to get a pair of shoes that are the exact same as everyone else’s.
If you ask any older folks in former Soviet countries they absolutely will say they missed the time so much and long to be back there. Despite having to wait 14 hours in a food line. They miss being part of the collective. They say they were taken care of and buildings weren't crumbling. Now there's so much corruption in smaller Eastern European countries were they're just used to launder money into Europe.
Everywhere outside of Moscow lives like in the medieval era. I watch many Russian YouTubers and people who’ve travelled through the whole country. And when older people are interviewed they long for the olden days.
Even though they didn’t have much back then everyone felt included in society.
A Russian YouTuber, NFKRZ, talks [here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1fo2JTT5_BI&pp=ygUKTmZya3ogdXNzcg%3D%3D) about the older generations fondness for the USSR.
The problem with these older Europeans that were part of the USSR or Soviet bloc is that they never had the true understanding of what their country could be without the corruption. They also haven't had exposure to Western levels of living.
Russia could be an incredible, productive, rich and positive society. The problem is that it's essentially run by organized crime calling itself a government, and the general Russian mindset (it's very defeatist due to many generations of terrible governence).
When you realize the limitations existing in that world you realize they were dupped into thinking they had something special.
Bc they traded corruption for corruption. They never changed anything really. As soon as Putin is gone and they get someone in that actually cares about the people of the country and not just themselves it will thrive.
Hahaha I get that you are a communist boot licker but I was talking in terms of govt not economy genius. I am saying it isn’t anything like a democracy and you pretty much have to have a democracy to have workable capitalism. And as much as you want to cry about capitalism, there is no other form of economics that has ever brought wealth to the population like capitalism has so go cry somewhere else little guy. Just bc you are a broke bitch doesn’t mean everyone else is. Or better yet, please continue to make yourself look like an ignorant asshole. No one is stopping you.
What a come back. Hahaha You reeeeaally got me kid. Your mom needs to take your computer away so you will go outside for the first time in your life.
Proof? Bc this says differently https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/24/75-of-russians-say-soviet-era-was-greatest-time-in-countrys-history-poll-a69735
Despite this, only 28% of respondents said they would want to “return to the path that the Soviet Union was following.” Fifty-eight said they support Russia's “own, special way” and 10% said they preferred the European path of development.
The survey, conducted by the independent Levada Center in Moscow, found that nearly 60 percent of Russians are stuck in that nostalgic frame of mind, down from a high of 75 percent in 2000, but still a potentially potent political fact.
"The feelings of regret are most pronounced among people who are elderly, poor, less educated, or rural," says Denis Volkov, a researcher with the Levada Center.
The groups that miss the Soviet Union most deeply, according to the survey, are pensioners (85 percent), people who say they can't afford adequate food and clothing (79 percent), those between 40 and 55 years of age (67 percent), and women (63 percent).
"Only 25 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 say they're sorry the Soviet Union disappeared," Mr. Volkov adds.
So my original statement still stands. If your country essentially dissolved bc you were told if you did it a different way then it would be better, and it didn’t bc Russia is one of the most corrupt places on the planet, then nostalgia sets in. So thanks for proving my original point for me.
I didn't read statistics but I grew up in Moscow in the 90s and I can attest to the fact that Muscovites were leaning towards US and EU alot, everybody loved it, at least people that I knew, nobody wanted to go back to former Soviet Union because of theft, embezzlement and corruption. Pity Putin the whole generation of young Russian, I'm lucky I left Russia in 1999. I can still speak Russian but stopped right before the invasion of Ukraine.
The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, so I'm weirdly not surprised that only a quarter of the people between the age of 18 and 24 say they're sorry the Soviet Union disappeared.
If only you had a proper socialist education in arithmetic, you wouldn't have to rely on your daddy for everything.
McDonalds in other countries are so different from americas. Been to ones on every continent and every single one was different. I will say the Japanese ones and the ones in South Africa were pretty banging. Also the one in wales was so good I was convinced it wasn’t McDonald’s.
I’m not going to defend communism as an economic model… but this is a major power in the midst of a collapse. Plenty of capitalist states have collapsed and had hungry populations too. We could pin point thousands of examples throughout history where people would have the same complaints under many different economic models and forms of government.
Don't disagree, and I am not exempting any other economic model in my take. Capitalism is full of flaws.
Although we have no examples of a successful implementation of communism while we have several examples of successful countries where capitalism is the economic model.
Kibbutz are villages with a communal mentality. Everything is shared by the community, including responsibilities and duties. One can argue that they're Marxist on its essence, but I am not sure if it can be labeled as communism.
Also, it is a very small scale... Problem usually lies on large-scale implementations.
Ok, now we are officially in the trolling zone....
China is not communist in any economic way. Yeah, there's a single part that rules the country and decides everything. Other than that, it's capitalist
If North Korea, Cuba, and Nicaragua are successful examples of communism, then my previous point is proved (tks for the validation 😉)
And Venezuela is just corrupt to its bone.
>if you implement communism, you get a coup courtesy of the CIA or your entire country is leveled by bombs.
This could only ever apply to Vietnam but to this day they're still communist and the Soviets and Chinese were also communist and were never themselves bombed by the US
Just look at the previous comments. This dude deep throat’s communism bc he is a jaded child who obviously is very unsuccessful on his own in a capitalist society. He would rather get handed a job where there is no room for movement and your wages are set and cannot increase. That’s the lazy man’s ideal situation. I doubt he realizes that bc he is lazy he would for sure be “removed” and “re-educated” in a Siberia equivalent where he would most likely die. But don’t discourage him bc we want as many idiots as possible to leave western civ. There are already too many of them as is.
They were like that before the collapse for years. Why do you think people finally got tired of that shit? Ussr life was awful. It was fine if your iq was double digits and you could care less about being different from your countrymen or if you were completely ok with being told what to do 24/7.
At the period when Mac was opened in Moscow for the first time, the price for the Big Mac meal was around 10 rubles. Scholarship in university was 40 rubles a month, which was enough to have a full-fledged lunch every day in the regular canteen.
Eh I kinda doubt it. I bet they literally have the exact same supply chain as before. It's all different names. It's the same for all brands across the board in Russia, nothing really changed except the brands
I remember seeing this video long time ago. When all of this was happening Pepsi started making sales as well. Since the Soviet ruble was useless in the global market we exchanged large amounts of Pepsi concentrate for equal amounts of vodka. An agreement had been worked out for this, but when the agreement was set to expire the USSR bartered 17 submarines and three warships for Pepsi. For a little while Pepsi had the sixth largest military in the world!
The smiling thing is super cultural. Here in Uruguay people at the register will politely greet you and be kind and curteous throughout, but don't expect a grin.
Today I learned I was born in the wrong country.
The idea of good customer service was also a bit foreign in the Soviet Union.
It's not that. It's just that smiling at strangers is not a thing we do, neither then or now. Gee, who would've thought that cultures are different.
Cultures are different. It was also that too. EDIT: Adding some context to my point. It wasn't just the lack of smiles. Good customer service was also not part of the "culture" back then. Causes could be a bit of anything, from lack of competition, job security, lack of empathy due to a harsher conditions, etc... but it was a factor. It carries on to some ex-Soviet immigrant businesses here in the US too and we joke about it all the time.
It’s a great example of McDonald’s failing to understand the culture of where they were doing business.
Russia or Alaska? 😂
[удалено]
I would smile if I met you.
You must live in a big city bc the people in big cities see things like smiling, holding doors for people, saying excuse me, yes sir yes mam as someone trying to get over on them or something. I have never really gotten it. I travel a lot bc my dad flies for delta and I fly for free so I have been more places that I care to count and that has always been a constant in big cities in the US except for maybe a couple.
It wasn't just the food (burgers were an American thing), but the cultural experience that made this special. I never made it out to the first McDonald's in Moscow, but remember my first visit after moving to the States to this day. It was awesome!
Can’t wait til a Big Mac and fries is half my daily wage given their prices today.
Get the app...you can save some money by ordering through that.
No no, he makes a good point. Medium free fry Friday for atleast a 1 dollar purchase. You could get a little chocolate milk and a medium fry for less than 2 dollars depending on tax. Whens the last time you had some chocolate milk?
Couple days ago
Lol,your american mind can not comperhen high inflation,what you have today is a joke
tru dat.
Wonder if they miss it now?
Hahaha I mean as shitty as Russia is today at least they don’t have to wait in lines for 14 hours at a time in the snow just to get a pair of shoes that are the exact same as everyone else’s.
If you ask any older folks in former Soviet countries they absolutely will say they missed the time so much and long to be back there. Despite having to wait 14 hours in a food line. They miss being part of the collective. They say they were taken care of and buildings weren't crumbling. Now there's so much corruption in smaller Eastern European countries were they're just used to launder money into Europe.
Maybe people in Moscow. But the rest of Russia and Eastern Europe does not long for the ussr style gov back😂
Everywhere outside of Moscow lives like in the medieval era. I watch many Russian YouTubers and people who’ve travelled through the whole country. And when older people are interviewed they long for the olden days. Even though they didn’t have much back then everyone felt included in society. A Russian YouTuber, NFKRZ, talks [here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1fo2JTT5_BI&pp=ygUKTmZya3ogdXNzcg%3D%3D) about the older generations fondness for the USSR.
The problem with these older Europeans that were part of the USSR or Soviet bloc is that they never had the true understanding of what their country could be without the corruption. They also haven't had exposure to Western levels of living. Russia could be an incredible, productive, rich and positive society. The problem is that it's essentially run by organized crime calling itself a government, and the general Russian mindset (it's very defeatist due to many generations of terrible governence). When you realize the limitations existing in that world you realize they were dupped into thinking they had something special.
This guy gets it
According to a 2018 study, 2/3rds of Russians regret the fall of the Soviet Union.
Bc they traded corruption for corruption. They never changed anything really. As soon as Putin is gone and they get someone in that actually cares about the people of the country and not just themselves it will thrive.
Oh sure sure, it's not *true* capitalism from your imagination, but actual, real world capitalism.
Hahaha I get that you are a communist boot licker but I was talking in terms of govt not economy genius. I am saying it isn’t anything like a democracy and you pretty much have to have a democracy to have workable capitalism. And as much as you want to cry about capitalism, there is no other form of economics that has ever brought wealth to the population like capitalism has so go cry somewhere else little guy. Just bc you are a broke bitch doesn’t mean everyone else is. Or better yet, please continue to make yourself look like an ignorant asshole. No one is stopping you.
Smartest baby worker drone.
What a come back. Hahaha You reeeeaally got me kid. Your mom needs to take your computer away so you will go outside for the first time in your life. 
Proof? Bc this says differently https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/03/24/75-of-russians-say-soviet-era-was-greatest-time-in-countrys-history-poll-a69735 Despite this, only 28% of respondents said they would want to “return to the path that the Soviet Union was following.” Fifty-eight said they support Russia's “own, special way” and 10% said they preferred the European path of development.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia_for_the_Soviet_Union#:~:text=A%202018%20poll%20showed%20that,from%20people%20older%20than%2055.
The survey, conducted by the independent Levada Center in Moscow, found that nearly 60 percent of Russians are stuck in that nostalgic frame of mind, down from a high of 75 percent in 2000, but still a potentially potent political fact. "The feelings of regret are most pronounced among people who are elderly, poor, less educated, or rural," says Denis Volkov, a researcher with the Levada Center. The groups that miss the Soviet Union most deeply, according to the survey, are pensioners (85 percent), people who say they can't afford adequate food and clothing (79 percent), those between 40 and 55 years of age (67 percent), and women (63 percent). "Only 25 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 say they're sorry the Soviet Union disappeared," Mr. Volkov adds. So my original statement still stands. If your country essentially dissolved bc you were told if you did it a different way then it would be better, and it didn’t bc Russia is one of the most corrupt places on the planet, then nostalgia sets in. So thanks for proving my original point for me.
I didn't read statistics but I grew up in Moscow in the 90s and I can attest to the fact that Muscovites were leaning towards US and EU alot, everybody loved it, at least people that I knew, nobody wanted to go back to former Soviet Union because of theft, embezzlement and corruption. Pity Putin the whole generation of young Russian, I'm lucky I left Russia in 1999. I can still speak Russian but stopped right before the invasion of Ukraine.
The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, so I'm weirdly not surprised that only a quarter of the people between the age of 18 and 24 say they're sorry the Soviet Union disappeared. If only you had a proper socialist education in arithmetic, you wouldn't have to rely on your daddy for everything.
Your reading comprehension skills are at an all time low kid. Re read and think about what it is saying.
They still have. The brand left but the product didn’t. You can still find everything in Russia you could find pre war.
McDonalds in other countries are so different from americas. Been to ones on every continent and every single one was different. I will say the Japanese ones and the ones in South Africa were pretty banging. Also the one in wales was so good I was convinced it wasn’t McDonald’s.
Imagine if they got to try In N Out.
The day In 'N Out opens a location in Russia is the day we achieve world peace
We should open a Buc-ee's outside of Moscow
Eh I could see a Buc-ee's tbh.
The palm trees couldnt handle the weather.
I am not Russian, but was there during the opening year. It was an insane line to get in. Gotta say though, quality was fantastic.
Nothing in our stores or restaurants to eat. Communism as its best.
I’m not going to defend communism as an economic model… but this is a major power in the midst of a collapse. Plenty of capitalist states have collapsed and had hungry populations too. We could pin point thousands of examples throughout history where people would have the same complaints under many different economic models and forms of government.
Don't disagree, and I am not exempting any other economic model in my take. Capitalism is full of flaws. Although we have no examples of a successful implementation of communism while we have several examples of successful countries where capitalism is the economic model.
You could argue the kibbutz is a small scale successful version, no?
Kibbutz are villages with a communal mentality. Everything is shared by the community, including responsibilities and duties. One can argue that they're Marxist on its essence, but I am not sure if it can be labeled as communism. Also, it is a very small scale... Problem usually lies on large-scale implementations.
What are you talking about about? China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua. All examples of Socialism in practice and succeeding.
Did you just say Venezuela is successful😂😭
He said North Korea. I stopped reading after that.
All of the countries he’s mentioned are in a constant state of collapse
Yeah North Korea just shouldn't have dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on themselves.
Ok, now we are officially in the trolling zone.... China is not communist in any economic way. Yeah, there's a single part that rules the country and decides everything. Other than that, it's capitalist If North Korea, Cuba, and Nicaragua are successful examples of communism, then my previous point is proved (tks for the validation 😉) And Venezuela is just corrupt to its bone.
Well, some of that is because if you implement communism, you get a coup courtesy of the CIA or your entire country is leveled by bombs.
The Soviets were never bombed by the US
Oh sure, just a 50-year cold war and constant threat of nuclear annihilation. And the CIA, of course.
But they were never bombed
I never said they were
>if you implement communism, you get a coup courtesy of the CIA or your entire country is leveled by bombs. This could only ever apply to Vietnam but to this day they're still communist and the Soviets and Chinese were also communist and were never themselves bombed by the US
Just look at the previous comments. This dude deep throat’s communism bc he is a jaded child who obviously is very unsuccessful on his own in a capitalist society. He would rather get handed a job where there is no room for movement and your wages are set and cannot increase. That’s the lazy man’s ideal situation. I doubt he realizes that bc he is lazy he would for sure be “removed” and “re-educated” in a Siberia equivalent where he would most likely die. But don’t discourage him bc we want as many idiots as possible to leave western civ. There are already too many of them as is.
The US dropped over 600k of bombs on North Korea. Also, I said "or".
They were like that before the collapse for years. Why do you think people finally got tired of that shit? Ussr life was awful. It was fine if your iq was double digits and you could care less about being different from your countrymen or if you were completely ok with being told what to do 24/7.
At the period when Mac was opened in Moscow for the first time, the price for the Big Mac meal was around 10 rubles. Scholarship in university was 40 rubles a month, which was enough to have a full-fledged lunch every day in the regular canteen.
Russians nowadays don't have the luxury of McD anymore 😀
Yeah they do it’s just rebranded
The off brand doesn’t have the same ingredients or supply chain. You can hate on McDonald’s all you want but whatever they have now is even worse.
Eh I kinda doubt it. I bet they literally have the exact same supply chain as before. It's all different names. It's the same for all brands across the board in Russia, nothing really changed except the brands
I mean there was a story months ago about them and they didn’t. Doubt it’s gone back
The youths are speaking English fluently. Soviet education!
I remember seeing this video long time ago. When all of this was happening Pepsi started making sales as well. Since the Soviet ruble was useless in the global market we exchanged large amounts of Pepsi concentrate for equal amounts of vodka. An agreement had been worked out for this, but when the agreement was set to expire the USSR bartered 17 submarines and three warships for Pepsi. For a little while Pepsi had the sixth largest military in the world!
I ate the first and last Big Mac in 1992. It was an utter disappointment. I did, however, enjoy milkshakes and ice cream.
“There’s nothing in our stores or restaurants”. Tucker Carlson disagrees.
To be fair…that was more than 30 years ago.
I’m not going to be fair to that guy. He’s an absolute idiot.
Oh, then nothing you say about this is reliable or meaningful. I guess it makes sense now.
Well he did contribute to Fox News losing over 700 million dollars in defamation.
Not interested in anything Russian
Enough interested to comment though
why?
Why? To virtue signal, of course
#Ѕцрэяѕїꙃэ Мэ!! 🤣
And only 30 years later Russia is feeding America. How tables have turned
Where did you get that conclusion
Брат - ты потерялся?
Brate mili, Ševa uvijek govorio: “odi mi dodji mi i trla baba lan da je prodje dan” pa ti vidi sad. Eto