When McDonald's Pushkin Square restaurant opened on January 31, 1990 in Moscow it broke McDonald's world wide opening day records for customers served. To this day Pushkin continues to be the busiest McDonald's restaurant in the world.
Around 20 years ago McDonalds got a permission from the Communist Party of Soviet Union to open its first rest in Soviet Russia. It was not only the first McDonalds but generally the first fast food place in Russia ever. People from all over the Russia when visiting Moscow wanted to visit this “pearl of the capitalism” so there were literary a few mile long lines of the visitors to this place. Those times, and even 10 years ago, it was rather expensive for Russians.
The situation has changed dramatically nowadays. McDonald's fast food chain in Russia includes over 200 restaurants now in many large Russian cities.

McDonald’s is certainly loved by Russians for its cheap tasty food, clean and cozy restaurants, fast service.
As a matter of fact, Russian families do not go to have breakfast, lunch or dinner in McDonald’s, because Russian food is very traditional, and most Russians are used to eating salads, the first and the second course – soup, meat or fish and some garnish. But McDonald’s – McDuck in a Russian students’ slang – is a beloved place of all students and teenagers. They get together there to have a snack, a nice chat, and using free wi-fi to come on-line to check their messages in popular Russian social networks. McDonald’s is a popular place with all tourists as well, who, feeling tired of long walking sightseeing, come to have a rest there.
And surely, McDonald’s is often the place for the first date of many Russian girls and boys.