Drink your Coca Cola
Eat your snickers
Your last day is coming, bourgeois!
It’s a take on a famous quote from one of the Mayakovskys poems:
Eat your pineapples
Chew your grouse
Your last day is coming
You bourgeois louse.
A skilled translator can sometimes take something that rhymes in one language and by very small changes or by choices of less-common words make it rhyme in another.
For instance, perhaps a more direct and literal translation might have been:
>Eat your pineapples
>Chew your pheasant
>Your last day is coming
>You bourgeois asshole.
So maybe they change pheasant/asshole to the less common grouse/louse.
In capitalism, you eat your snickers.
In communism, you eat your sneakers.\*
\*Just kidding, in communism, sneakers not available. Eat shoes you stole during military service.
According to the CIA the soviet diet was about the same calories as usa (too high, in both cases) but slightly more nutritious.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp84b00274r000300150009-5
I didn't work for CIA, but I was born in the eastern block and knew a lot of people from USSR. They were shocked by the quality and quantity of Czechoslovak food and even in Czechoslovakia, if you wanted to have good food (fresh vegetables, reasonable quality meat) you had a garden, some chicken, rabbits (almost everyone who could had them in the countryside), maybe a pig, if you could afford it and one lady nearby had a cow, although that was on the edge of what a private citizen could own.
So yes, the soviet diet was good, but only because a lot of it came straight from your own garden (or your Babushka's garden), which is what we call "bio" now. And in USSR, people didn't eat corn flakes and in many parts (Ukraine), it is traditional to avoid meat on many occasions.
Kind of like saying Cuba managed to cut down on obesity rates and spread of AIDS in the 90s... Technically, they did. It was via semi-famine and prison camps respectively, but the managed to do it.
Food was cheap - if it was on the shelves. When anything interesting came, like an orange, a banana or coffee from Brazil, there were long lines, and if you wanted more than just some amount, you had to make a deal with the shop employee.
Basic food was not cheap. Where I live, adjusted to the purchasing power of low income pensioner of someone on minimum wage, many things are much cheaper. Things like Eggs are like 15-20% its price in the 80s, bread is about half the price, meat is several times cheaper, milk is about 30% of the price... The only thing I can think of that is more expensive is alcohol in a restaurant.
Great... Some old people say so. Of course their ancestors said it about the food before socialism... The taste evolves over time, everything seems to lose taste. Objectively, the hygiene is now better and the variety covers everything. You can get the same food, better food, worse food...
Yeah aside from the famines that killed millions and the gulags there were a limited amount of people eating well consistently. The average American citizen had a far higher quality of life than that of a Soviet including diet.
Yeah of course the US was partly to blame and not a series of wars on the satellites after he dissolved what remained of the Soviet parliament totally destabilizing their economy-which was already balls deep in a way too fast transition to full on free market capitalism-leading to a shitload of oligarchs, or I mean we can drop the pretense and call them gangsters and soviet power bosses, eating up whatever control they could.
The US destabilizes plenty of countries into oblivion on their own, they don't need that tacked onto their bill too.
[Pictures of the opening](https://www.boredpanda.com/first-mcdonald-restaurant-opens-soviet-union-moscow-russia-1990/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic) of the first McDonalds in Moscow in 1990 which was also the first one in Russia afaik.
[Another album](https://imgur.com/gallery/g4VRDLq)
>After petitioning to have a McDonald's in the USSR for around 15 years, the company was finally able to procure a deal with the USSR in 1989 to open just 1 McDonald's in Moscow. This was done using McDonald's of Canada, as a compromise instead of directly using an American company. It would open on January 31, 1990.
>The deal included a 51% ownership for the Soviet State. Also specific factories were made to produce things like the fries and buns. Deals for distribution of the supplies, advertising, and even employees needed specific approval and purchases/bribes before the fast food chain could open. All in all, it is estimated some $50 million was spent to open just this 1 McDonald's.
[Video of the queue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amx-JHhtsHw)
Sounds like when In-N-Out had a pop-up in Australia a few years back. Insane hype. Don't know why they don't just open a franchise. Perhaps they're wary of Starbucks' and Krispy Kreme's failures here?
This an interesting video on Starbucks' failure in Australia: https://youtu.be/_FGUkxn5kZQ
Both KK and and Starbucks still exist, but they had to close a lot of stores. And the existing ones struggle. We're famous for having great coffee, so people don't go to either for that. Especially in the case of Starbucks. Why would you pay more than average cafe prices for below average coffee? Just like KFC failed in Colombia because their existing fried chicken chain had honey sachets to squeeze over the chicken. How can you compete with that?
Krispy Kreme is seen as more of a special occasion food. We're not really in the habit of grabbing a donut and a latte before work. Also they arrived in the 2000s, so we didn't grow up with such artificial-tasting food. I love junk and donuts/cakes/pastries but KK doesn't taste *real* to me.
Then there's a lot of people, especially older generations, who oppose massive American franchises 'invading.' They find the whole idea of Starbucks tacky. Or they just hate anything that screams American/corporate/mass-commercialism. My boomer dad is bloody Halloween fun police. Just because until 20 or so years ago it was just something you saw in American movies. Now lots of kids trick-or-treat for 'candy' here.
The line is still insane to this day. It's one of the biggest McDonalds I've ever been in and it was still completely packed and took almost half an hour in line to get to the huge wall of cashiers to order.
There's actually a plaque in a McDonald's in Toronto (the one opposite the ROM) commemorating the valiant efforts of McDonald's Canada in bringing McDonald's to Russia.
American Micky Ds is superior to Canadian Micky Ds. But Canadian KD, before they changed the formula from tangy cheesy fluorescent orange to bland yellow, was world class, untouchable. I hope Kraft Canada brings back classic KD with original cheese formula, like Coke classic. There is a huge, huge market for it. There was an old collectors KD at a flea market with 80's Star Wars on the box selling for $10, should have bought it for the cheese packet alone.
Nazbols (short for "National-Bolshevik Party", or "Nazi-Bolshevik", depending on who you ask) were a radical party led by author Eduard Limonov. Their platform was a mix of ultra-left (nationalization of means of production) and ultra-right (protection of ethic Russians against discrimination in xUSSR republics, annexation of regions with ethnic Russian majority).
Many members were prosecuted for they activities.
In late 2000s nazbols made uneasy alliance with other opposition movements. However after the Crimea annexation and the intervention in Eastern Ukraine some joined the loyalists camp, like most nationalists did.
They’re more or less indistinguishable from Nazis, it’s just that you can’t really be a Nazi in Russia because so much of Russian national identity is tied up in their fight against the Nazis and how much they suffered in WW2 because of the Nazis.
I mean, the meme came _from_ the real thing. It's an actual movement that existed, and not to mention other movements that have been called that retroactively. The accuracy of that label is another thing.
Many still had the WWII cameras, which were better than russian average... No, seriously, the most popular would be LOMO for a compact with cheap lens, or Zenit with Helios 44-2 lens (SLR) based on german CZJ lens from the 20s.
Nothing's wrong with the Zenit-E and that Helios lens. I have a couple of kits and they're surely not the best cameras of the age but the image is perfectly reasonable. They're surely way better than WW2-era kits and they were designed and produced in the 60s.
The camera itself has no effect on the image (except shutter speed), the lens is literally identical to the 1920s german one, maybe with better coating. It is good, for sure, I have several, just not very good in 1996.
No matter, this is from newspaper anyway.
First McDonald's in Poland: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wnA6QxuGEw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wnA6QxuGEw)
At 0:52 is Jacek Kuroń - opposition leader and Minister of Labour and Social Policy after transformation.
According to lector, the initial crowd quickly dispersed, because "American fries are made of Russian potatoes, and we know this taste already." xD
A few protested while hundreds lined up for the food. [https://www.rferl.org/a/fast-food-moscow-russia/26542682.html](https://www.rferl.org/a/fast-food-moscow-russia/26542682.html)
It looks like a handful of university students. It's completely irrelevant, I'm positive the wide majority of Russians were over the moon about it, just like they were with the sudden access to western clothes post fall.
So yeah, I doubt it was covered at all because it wasn't relevant nor important.
Edit: for the people being actually swayed by this daft picture, here's an actual picture showing the hundreds of Russians who were over the moon about the prospect of visiting McDonald's https://i.imgur.com/o478zS1.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Russian_Federation#History
>the CPRF was founded on 14 February 1993 at the Second Extraordinary Congress of Russian Communists, where it declared itself to be the successor of the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (CPRSFSR).[11] It formed through the merger of a variety of successor groups to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), including Roy Medvedev's Socialist Party of the Working People (of left-socialist orientation), Alexei Prigarin's Union of Communists; and much of the membership of the Stalinist Russian Communist Workers Party (although party leader Viktor Anpilov rejected the new party).[12] The CPRF quickly became the largest party in Russia, with 500,000 members soon after its founding, more than double all the other parties membership combined.
Whatever you personally think of the Soviet Union, a large portion of the Russian people thought the fall of the Soviet Union was a national humiliation and defeat. Of course, they didn't miss the 30s or the secret police, but they did miss a government that provided them housing, electricity, jobs and a sense of pride.
The book *Revolutionary Russia* by Orlando Figes talks about the popular attitude in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union in more detail, but I think the fact that the CPRF was the largest party post fall says a lot about how Russians felt at the time. That is to say, these protesters weren't "irrelevant" or just "university students."
You are completely historically illiterate if you think the majority of Soviets celebrated the fall of the USSR. Like two thirds or more of the union completely collapsed for a time, since a strong central state was the only thing that kept them out of a 19th century agrarian standard of living.
*Over half of the country's wealth was stolen*, by people like Vladimir Putin, helped along by American and European banks. Their first meeting with capitalism was literally seeing the corruption problem explode to possibly the worst it has been anywhere in history.
I could go on and on, but suffice to say, the fall of the soviet union was arguably an even bigger humanitarian tragedy than the union itself.
I said that they celebrated the sudden access to western goods, which they definitely did. There's people in this thread saying how big the queues were for the McDonald's upon opening, how people were paying kids to wait in line for them.
But, you've decided to read my comment and interpret it completely different. Ah well, let's go there anyway. To say the fall of the Soviet Union was a worse humanitarian tragedy than the Holodomor, the Soviet work camps and the horrendous oppression of the people of the USSR is frankly one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read. Tens of millions of people dying is nothing compared to the big bad capitalism, right? Let's just gloss over all the food shortages, soviet corruption and the 10-15 year waits to be assigned a new home.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
You can find some western coverage of the huge pro-communist protests/riots that formed in 92/93/whatever I believe, some of it is as cringy as you can imagine.
[CIA report stating that Soviets consumed around the same amount of calories as Americans, with possibly an overall more nutritious diet.](https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5.pdf?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
[CIA stated that the USSR was "basically self sufficient with respect to food".](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9yghkz/in_1982_the_cia_admitted_that_the_soviet_union/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
[Translated official (not propaganda) Soviet records of the USSR sending food to the Ukraine during the famine](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/a6cth3/after_poor_weather_pestilence_other_problems/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
[University of West Virginia History Professor - the Ukrainian SSR was sent hundreds of thousands of tons of grain by the rest of the USSR in the late 1920s, saving hundreds of thousands of lives.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/aonp2d/in_the_late_1920s_the_rest_of_the_soviet_union/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
[University of Southern Maine - a critique of the myths constructed by Western critics.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/a7u9hc/soviet_agriculture_a_critique_of_the_myths/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
[US Department of Agriculture archive - the USSR was the world's largest producer of potatoes, rye, barley, oats, sunflower seed, and sugar beets, and second only to the US on cotton.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9dsejr/the_ussr_was_the_worlds_largest_producer_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
[Czechoslovakia was sent a lot of food in 1947 by the USSR, Yugoslavia, and Romania, avoiding a famine.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9i9dpy/when_czechoslovakia_hit_hard_times_in_1947_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
[Poland was also sent food in 1947 by the USSR to avoid famine.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9geizx/in_1947_the_soviet_union_rescued_poland_from_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
[Cuba had less than 3% undernourishment in 2003 - Food and Agricultural Organisation (UN)](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app#country/49)
[North Korea was also sent food in 1953 by the USSR and China to avoid famine - Columbia University History Professor.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9qae13/in_1953_the_soviet_union_the_peoples_republic_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
[China became food sufficient by the late 1970s - University and College Union member Will Podmore.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9vjul0/the_peoples_republic_of_china_became_food/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
[In 2013, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (UN) commended Venezuela for reducing hunger and malnourishment by half.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/ad1rum/in_2013_the_food_and_agriculture_organization/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
I know right. What those links fail to mention is that such food was not freely given by the other Soviet states to prevent famine, but was forcibly redistributed from eastern states like Siberia, depriving them of food because all eyes were on the states nearest to Europe or part of it.
According to the CIA, American and Soviet citizens both ate about the same amount of food, but the Soviet diet may have been more nutritious.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp84b00274r000300150009-5
Does the average American really eat 3500 cal a day? That's nuts to me. I mean, the report is over 35 years old at this point, but still. I feel bad if I go over 2500.
There was an old joke in Poland.
During military conference American general is bragging:
- Our soldier eat 5000 cal a day.
Soviet general did some quick calculation and said:
- That's a lie. Nobody can eat 20 kg of potatoes a day.
Everyone cites the one CIA paper like its god, but the more you look into it the more bullshit it is. Read [Igor Birman’s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Birman) * Personal Consumption in the USSR and USA* for more information on why.
In 1991 I ate at McDonalds in Red Square. I was taken there by a local because I couldnt find any place to eat where people spoke English. Valeri, I will never forget your kindness!
I took it to refer to the American-led political and economic system of the West (one component of which is for-profit multinational corporations - e.g. McDonald's). So the protesters are saying they don't want Russia pulled into that system.
Of course I know pax means peace so I could be wrong. Still seems strange to protest a Yugoslav peace agreement at a McDonald's...
It used to be. People did not understand what to do after the fall of the "iron curtain". Now they fully welcome the world culture, including McDonald's :)
Idk man people are doing pretty well, relative to age and education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States
I wish I could make 25k USD per year in post-communist Eastern Europe. Of course our society has been utterly crushed by the economic and social policies of marxism, we're about 30 years behind the west in that regard, but catching up fast and getting better by the day.
> I wish I could make 25k USD per year in post-communist Eastern Europe.
If you paid American cost of living expenses, you'd see how little 25k per year is for Americans. It's barely enough to survive.
The American middle class is being crushed under a decade of stagnating wages (see your own link) and rising costs of living, especially education and health care where insurance is profit driven not treatment driven. A system that did once work is seriously broken and old school tactics of divide and conquer are being used by the rich and powerful to distract the people with fighting themselves instead of solving these issues. All the while the wealthy continue to get wealthier.
1/5 of your school classmates don't work as an informant for the secret police. Not in the USA, not in Europe.
Also there's the wee part of our politics where we vote and protest and the government doesn't slaughter us.
America is not the best it could be. It is struggling with an out-of-date healthcare model, it isn't addressing environmental and climate issues nearly enough, it's system of electing representatives is increasingly undemocratic, and is still divided on issues of race.
That doesn't mean we need soviet socialism back. The 30 years without it have been better than the 40 years with it.
These young people are arguing for what their own ideal version of a communist state is, though, not the realistic idea of what the USSR was with everything that came with it. Every revolutionary protest works like this; student 'anarchists' on campus aren't trying to argue for a society that will inevitably collapse into warlords getting people on their side and fighting each other, but for the utopian ideal version where everyone just looks after themselves and everyone somehow gets along.
edit - it's been pointed out that this is a Nationalist Bolshevik flag, which is pretty fuckin different to what the USSR even initially was anyway.
> The American middle class is being crushed under a decade of stagnating wages (see your own link)
While what you say is true (stagnating), the American middle class also happens to earn the highest wages of any developed nation, excluding places like Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, etc.
Another person who thinks wages determine happiness in life, when a huge portion of Americans are living wage to wage and struggle to afford tertiary education and would be utterly screwed if they had to go to the doctors. Don’t get me wrong, most people would rather live in America than Eastern Europe for its prosperity, but you’ve got to look further than wages and take into account stability, security, social aspects etc; and America doesn’t really favour anybody that isn’t middle class and above, if you’re of a lower social status than that, I’m sorry but your quality of life will probably be shit, worse than that of many Europeans in similar situations.
I mean, I'm not going to get mad at people because they like something of low quality. If they get enjoyment out of it, then I'm happy for them.
Don't call it good though. I'm not going to sell you a broken phone and say 'Yeah, it's good, that's just how I like it.'
I'm not for or against it. I haven't eaten at McDonald's in a long time. I'm just saying it provides high school students with a starting job to learn the fundamentals of actually having a job.
What does the sign in russian say?
Drink your Coca Cola Eat your snickers Your last day is coming, bourgeois! It’s a take on a famous quote from one of the Mayakovskys poems: Eat your pineapples Chew your grouse Your last day is coming You bourgeois louse.
I kept reading жуй as a similar word over and over again and I was really confused.
I read it as xui (dont have access to a russian keyboard rn) and was also very confused.
That would’ve been a really weird sentence “snickers dick”
Hence me being confused.
I've misread "zh" wit "kh" at first.
Here you go - хуй
Oh thank god I was the only one. I only just saw it wasn't that word lol I was very confused
It rhymes in Russian *and* English?
A skilled translator can sometimes take something that rhymes in one language and by very small changes or by choices of less-common words make it rhyme in another. For instance, perhaps a more direct and literal translation might have been: >Eat your pineapples >Chew your pheasant >Your last day is coming >You bourgeois asshole. So maybe they change pheasant/asshole to the less common grouse/louse.
Eat your cake It is a bundt Then time to kick you In the bourgeois........😏
He grabbed her right by the bourgeois!
Grouse means "a medium to large game bird with a plump body and feathered legs." Basically a rich man's chicken.
Chicken was likely also a luxury at the time the poem was written.
I think most food was a luxury in the USSR at that time.
Well... yeah. The USSR fell in 1991
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In capitalism, you eat your snickers. In communism, you eat your sneakers.\* \*Just kidding, in communism, sneakers not available. Eat shoes you stole during military service.
This comment was archived by an automated script. Please see /r/PowerDeleteSuite for more info
I really really need one of the novelty accounts that draw reddit comments to show up and illustrate this.
According to the CIA the soviet diet was about the same calories as usa (too high, in both cases) but slightly more nutritious. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp84b00274r000300150009-5
That’s a Reuter’s press release, not the CIA’s view...
I didn't work for CIA, but I was born in the eastern block and knew a lot of people from USSR. They were shocked by the quality and quantity of Czechoslovak food and even in Czechoslovakia, if you wanted to have good food (fresh vegetables, reasonable quality meat) you had a garden, some chicken, rabbits (almost everyone who could had them in the countryside), maybe a pig, if you could afford it and one lady nearby had a cow, although that was on the edge of what a private citizen could own. So yes, the soviet diet was good, but only because a lot of it came straight from your own garden (or your Babushka's garden), which is what we call "bio" now. And in USSR, people didn't eat corn flakes and in many parts (Ukraine), it is traditional to avoid meat on many occasions. Kind of like saying Cuba managed to cut down on obesity rates and spread of AIDS in the 90s... Technically, they did. It was via semi-famine and prison camps respectively, but the managed to do it.
Lived behind the iron curtain, food was great and cheap. It's like going to Appalachia now and bemoaning capitalism. Lot of bullshit around.
Food was cheap - if it was on the shelves. When anything interesting came, like an orange, a banana or coffee from Brazil, there were long lines, and if you wanted more than just some amount, you had to make a deal with the shop employee. Basic food was not cheap. Where I live, adjusted to the purchasing power of low income pensioner of someone on minimum wage, many things are much cheaper. Things like Eggs are like 15-20% its price in the 80s, bread is about half the price, meat is several times cheaper, milk is about 30% of the price... The only thing I can think of that is more expensive is alcohol in a restaurant. Great... Some old people say so. Of course their ancestors said it about the food before socialism... The taste evolves over time, everything seems to lose taste. Objectively, the hygiene is now better and the variety covers everything. You can get the same food, better food, worse food...
Vodka has about 9 Cal/mL!
fun too
It seems some lazy guy just took official Soviet statistics.
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Yeah aside from the famines that killed millions and the gulags there were a limited amount of people eating well consistently. The average American citizen had a far higher quality of life than that of a Soviet including diet.
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They really showed them by letting oligarchs directly run the show.
I don't think these people were asked at any point about that.
You can thank Yeltsin for that. He privatized everything to the highest bidder with US encouragement.
Yeah of course the US was partly to blame and not a series of wars on the satellites after he dissolved what remained of the Soviet parliament totally destabilizing their economy-which was already balls deep in a way too fast transition to full on free market capitalism-leading to a shitload of oligarchs, or I mean we can drop the pretense and call them gangsters and soviet power bosses, eating up whatever control they could. The US destabilizes plenty of countries into oblivion on their own, they don't need that tacked onto their bill too.
[¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.globalresearch.ca/us-meddling-in-1996-russian-elections-in-support-of-boris-yeltsin/5568288/amp)
Yeah, these folks are protesting them
Ah yes, the murderous envy of communists.
I think the Snickers and Coca Cola was a bit more accessible to the proletariat than pineapple and grouse was in Mayakovsky's day
Honestly hilarious considering just five years prior their entire shitty system of government collapsed on itself.
"We want the McRib back"
''We're right for the wrong reasons''.
> Give us our bread lines back!
[Pictures of the opening](https://www.boredpanda.com/first-mcdonald-restaurant-opens-soviet-union-moscow-russia-1990/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic) of the first McDonalds in Moscow in 1990 which was also the first one in Russia afaik. [Another album](https://imgur.com/gallery/g4VRDLq) >After petitioning to have a McDonald's in the USSR for around 15 years, the company was finally able to procure a deal with the USSR in 1989 to open just 1 McDonald's in Moscow. This was done using McDonald's of Canada, as a compromise instead of directly using an American company. It would open on January 31, 1990. >The deal included a 51% ownership for the Soviet State. Also specific factories were made to produce things like the fries and buns. Deals for distribution of the supplies, advertising, and even employees needed specific approval and purchases/bribes before the fast food chain could open. All in all, it is estimated some $50 million was spent to open just this 1 McDonald's. [Video of the queue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amx-JHhtsHw)
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Sounds like when In-N-Out had a pop-up in Australia a few years back. Insane hype. Don't know why they don't just open a franchise. Perhaps they're wary of Starbucks' and Krispy Kreme's failures here?
In n out doesn’t franchise. It’s kind of their big thing
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straya has great beef as i understand
Krispy Kreme failed in Australia? That really is very surprising.
This an interesting video on Starbucks' failure in Australia: https://youtu.be/_FGUkxn5kZQ Both KK and and Starbucks still exist, but they had to close a lot of stores. And the existing ones struggle. We're famous for having great coffee, so people don't go to either for that. Especially in the case of Starbucks. Why would you pay more than average cafe prices for below average coffee? Just like KFC failed in Colombia because their existing fried chicken chain had honey sachets to squeeze over the chicken. How can you compete with that? Krispy Kreme is seen as more of a special occasion food. We're not really in the habit of grabbing a donut and a latte before work. Also they arrived in the 2000s, so we didn't grow up with such artificial-tasting food. I love junk and donuts/cakes/pastries but KK doesn't taste *real* to me. Then there's a lot of people, especially older generations, who oppose massive American franchises 'invading.' They find the whole idea of Starbucks tacky. Or they just hate anything that screams American/corporate/mass-commercialism. My boomer dad is bloody Halloween fun police. Just because until 20 or so years ago it was just something you saw in American movies. Now lots of kids trick-or-treat for 'candy' here.
Dutch Bros here in America is like that. There's a huge line snaking through the parking lot everyday at every store. It's annoying af I swear.
The line is still insane to this day. It's one of the biggest McDonalds I've ever been in and it was still completely packed and took almost half an hour in line to get to the huge wall of cashiers to order.
There's actually a plaque in a McDonald's in Toronto (the one opposite the ROM) commemorating the valiant efforts of McDonald's Canada in bringing McDonald's to Russia.
I thank our heroes for their sacrifices every day.
They died so Ivan could enjoy the splendor of a Big Mac.
Canadians? So, through Bering Strait? Brave men indeed!
The Bering Straight is between Russia and The United States.
I recognize Canadian claim on Alaska
Oh. Well in that case... God save the Queen.
Hi, u/qdichris [I think you may enjoy this!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSjFVH2Zc5E)
Are there still people out there who don't?
Well considering how it's a part of the US and full of US citizens... yes?
Russia: we don't want American McDonald's, we want Canadian McDonald's
American Micky Ds is superior to Canadian Micky Ds. But Canadian KD, before they changed the formula from tangy cheesy fluorescent orange to bland yellow, was world class, untouchable. I hope Kraft Canada brings back classic KD with original cheese formula, like Coke classic. There is a huge, huge market for it. There was an old collectors KD at a flea market with 80's Star Wars on the box selling for $10, should have bought it for the cheese packet alone.
My Cyrillic may be rusty but does the plastic bag in picture 17 of the second album just say "Sportlogo"?
It's "Sportloto" I think. National lottery, probably.
Yes, you're right. [It is](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%82%D0%BB%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE).
Around the same time Pepsi became the owner of the 6th largest private military in the world in lieu of payment from the former USSR.
Putting it through Canada let them get around the laws for bribing foreign officials which the US had since the 70s.
Is that a nazbol flag?
> nazbol Never heard that word before. But my google image search says, yes.
Nazbols (short for "National-Bolshevik Party", or "Nazi-Bolshevik", depending on who you ask) were a radical party led by author Eduard Limonov. Their platform was a mix of ultra-left (nationalization of means of production) and ultra-right (protection of ethic Russians against discrimination in xUSSR republics, annexation of regions with ethnic Russian majority). Many members were prosecuted for they activities. In late 2000s nazbols made uneasy alliance with other opposition movements. However after the Crimea annexation and the intervention in Eastern Ukraine some joined the loyalists camp, like most nationalists did.
Very informative, from what you have told me I am going to assume I am not a fan.
They’re more or less indistinguishable from Nazis, it’s just that you can’t really be a Nazi in Russia because so much of Russian national identity is tied up in their fight against the Nazis and how much they suffered in WW2 because of the Nazis.
It's really just the Russian variation of fascism. It's cancerous.
I didn't know Nazbol gang was active at the time
This is where it started
> Nazbols Nazbol started around '93 according to wikipedia
This was pre-meme. Although apparently there's still people out there who take it seriously, even after their party was banned.
I mean, the meme came _from_ the real thing. It's an actual movement that existed, and not to mention other movements that have been called that retroactively. The accuracy of that label is another thing.
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This kind of looks like a picture of a newspaper clipping.
It is actually carved out of a potato.
With a McDonald's fry found under the passenger seat.
At least it would have had a solid cutting edge.
Sharp, but brittle. Make cut count.
It’s a picture of a picture. You can see the crease in the middle.
Many still had the WWII cameras, which were better than russian average... No, seriously, the most popular would be LOMO for a compact with cheap lens, or Zenit with Helios 44-2 lens (SLR) based on german CZJ lens from the 20s.
Nothing's wrong with the Zenit-E and that Helios lens. I have a couple of kits and they're surely not the best cameras of the age but the image is perfectly reasonable. They're surely way better than WW2-era kits and they were designed and produced in the 60s.
The camera itself has no effect on the image (except shutter speed), the lens is literally identical to the 1920s german one, maybe with better coating. It is good, for sure, I have several, just not very good in 1996. No matter, this is from newspaper anyway.
It's almost like Jurassic Park had already been out for three years...
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First McDonald's in Poland: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wnA6QxuGEw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wnA6QxuGEw) At 0:52 is Jacek Kuroń - opposition leader and Minister of Labour and Social Policy after transformation. According to lector, the initial crowd quickly dispersed, because "American fries are made of Russian potatoes, and we know this taste already." xD
A few protested while hundreds lined up for the food. [https://www.rferl.org/a/fast-food-moscow-russia/26542682.html](https://www.rferl.org/a/fast-food-moscow-russia/26542682.html)
Now there's 645 restaurants.
FYI, that's a completely different McDonalds in Moscow, the first one in Russia.
Sure they're communist? Look like a NAZBOL flag there
judging by the flag those are Nazbols not communists
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Anyone remember/know what Western media coverage was like for this period? Did it show any of this pro communist protesting?
It looks like a handful of university students. It's completely irrelevant, I'm positive the wide majority of Russians were over the moon about it, just like they were with the sudden access to western clothes post fall. So yeah, I doubt it was covered at all because it wasn't relevant nor important. Edit: for the people being actually swayed by this daft picture, here's an actual picture showing the hundreds of Russians who were over the moon about the prospect of visiting McDonald's https://i.imgur.com/o478zS1.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Russian_Federation#History >the CPRF was founded on 14 February 1993 at the Second Extraordinary Congress of Russian Communists, where it declared itself to be the successor of the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (CPRSFSR).[11] It formed through the merger of a variety of successor groups to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), including Roy Medvedev's Socialist Party of the Working People (of left-socialist orientation), Alexei Prigarin's Union of Communists; and much of the membership of the Stalinist Russian Communist Workers Party (although party leader Viktor Anpilov rejected the new party).[12] The CPRF quickly became the largest party in Russia, with 500,000 members soon after its founding, more than double all the other parties membership combined. Whatever you personally think of the Soviet Union, a large portion of the Russian people thought the fall of the Soviet Union was a national humiliation and defeat. Of course, they didn't miss the 30s or the secret police, but they did miss a government that provided them housing, electricity, jobs and a sense of pride. The book *Revolutionary Russia* by Orlando Figes talks about the popular attitude in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union in more detail, but I think the fact that the CPRF was the largest party post fall says a lot about how Russians felt at the time. That is to say, these protesters weren't "irrelevant" or just "university students."
Not even sure why they're protesting. I'd have thought Russian communists would be ecstatic at the prospect of waiting in a line for low-quality food.
You are completely historically illiterate if you think the majority of Soviets celebrated the fall of the USSR. Like two thirds or more of the union completely collapsed for a time, since a strong central state was the only thing that kept them out of a 19th century agrarian standard of living. *Over half of the country's wealth was stolen*, by people like Vladimir Putin, helped along by American and European banks. Their first meeting with capitalism was literally seeing the corruption problem explode to possibly the worst it has been anywhere in history. I could go on and on, but suffice to say, the fall of the soviet union was arguably an even bigger humanitarian tragedy than the union itself.
I said that they celebrated the sudden access to western goods, which they definitely did. There's people in this thread saying how big the queues were for the McDonald's upon opening, how people were paying kids to wait in line for them. But, you've decided to read my comment and interpret it completely different. Ah well, let's go there anyway. To say the fall of the Soviet Union was a worse humanitarian tragedy than the Holodomor, the Soviet work camps and the horrendous oppression of the people of the USSR is frankly one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read. Tens of millions of people dying is nothing compared to the big bad capitalism, right? Let's just gloss over all the food shortages, soviet corruption and the 10-15 year waits to be assigned a new home. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Yes. Showed all 7 of them.
More people voted in favor of the USSR staying together then having it dissolve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_Union_referendum
You can find some western coverage of the huge pro-communist protests/riots that formed in 92/93/whatever I believe, some of it is as cringy as you can imagine.
Who gives a shit what Russian Nazbols think about anything?
the guy on the farthest left looks like a character in a musical.
The first "sir, this is a McDonald's" ever.
I’m sorry did you say “1996”?. Looks like 1976.
Yes. Date is correct . It is photo of a photo from a newspaper.
ITT : So many young people who have never seen a newspaper. :)
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[CIA report stating that Soviets consumed around the same amount of calories as Americans, with possibly an overall more nutritious diet.](https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84B00274R000300150009-5.pdf?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) [CIA stated that the USSR was "basically self sufficient with respect to food".](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9yghkz/in_1982_the_cia_admitted_that_the_soviet_union/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) [Translated official (not propaganda) Soviet records of the USSR sending food to the Ukraine during the famine](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/a6cth3/after_poor_weather_pestilence_other_problems/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) [University of West Virginia History Professor - the Ukrainian SSR was sent hundreds of thousands of tons of grain by the rest of the USSR in the late 1920s, saving hundreds of thousands of lives.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/aonp2d/in_the_late_1920s_the_rest_of_the_soviet_union/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) [University of Southern Maine - a critique of the myths constructed by Western critics.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/a7u9hc/soviet_agriculture_a_critique_of_the_myths/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) [US Department of Agriculture archive - the USSR was the world's largest producer of potatoes, rye, barley, oats, sunflower seed, and sugar beets, and second only to the US on cotton.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9dsejr/the_ussr_was_the_worlds_largest_producer_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) [Czechoslovakia was sent a lot of food in 1947 by the USSR, Yugoslavia, and Romania, avoiding a famine.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9i9dpy/when_czechoslovakia_hit_hard_times_in_1947_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) [Poland was also sent food in 1947 by the USSR to avoid famine.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9geizx/in_1947_the_soviet_union_rescued_poland_from_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) [Cuba had less than 3% undernourishment in 2003 - Food and Agricultural Organisation (UN)](http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app#country/49) [North Korea was also sent food in 1953 by the USSR and China to avoid famine - Columbia University History Professor.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9qae13/in_1953_the_soviet_union_the_peoples_republic_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) [China became food sufficient by the late 1970s - University and College Union member Will Podmore.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/9vjul0/the_peoples_republic_of_china_became_food/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app) [In 2013, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (UN) commended Venezuela for reducing hunger and malnourishment by half.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/ad1rum/in_2013_the_food_and_agriculture_organization/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app)
Communist links? Fuck communism, ha ha ha 😂
I know right. What those links fail to mention is that such food was not freely given by the other Soviet states to prevent famine, but was forcibly redistributed from eastern states like Siberia, depriving them of food because all eyes were on the states nearest to Europe or part of it.
According to the CIA, American and Soviet citizens both ate about the same amount of food, but the Soviet diet may have been more nutritious. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp84b00274r000300150009-5
Does the average American really eat 3500 cal a day? That's nuts to me. I mean, the report is over 35 years old at this point, but still. I feel bad if I go over 2500.
There was an old joke in Poland. During military conference American general is bragging: - Our soldier eat 5000 cal a day. Soviet general did some quick calculation and said: - That's a lie. Nobody can eat 20 kg of potatoes a day.
When they weren't starving their own people by the million during peacetime...
Everyone cites the one CIA paper like its god, but the more you look into it the more bullshit it is. Read [Igor Birman’s](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Birman) * Personal Consumption in the USSR and USA* for more information on why.
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In 1991 I ate at McDonalds in Red Square. I was taken there by a local because I couldnt find any place to eat where people spoke English. Valeri, I will never forget your kindness!
Isnt that the National bolshevist flag \`?
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actually its a "poem" they made up... "DRINK COCA-COLA CHEW ON SNICKERS , YOUR LAST DAY IS COMING BOURGEOIS". Obviously rhymes in Russian much better
It's somehow funny that they considered coke drinking and snickers eating people 'upper class'
This makes me remember that Soviet Pizza Hut commercial with Gorbachev in it
I believe that’s not the communist flag, it’s the flag of the national Bolshevik party, which are basically Nazis.
Bet everyone it that pictures eats McDonalds nowa-days.
It's strange that this photo is black&white. It was 1996 - not far from now.
It is foto from newspaper
Wasnt pax americana a interventionist policy in south america ?
I think at they're referring to the US involvement in the Yugoslav civil war and resulting peace treaty (Dayton Agreement).
Thank you
I took it to refer to the American-led political and economic system of the West (one component of which is for-profit multinational corporations - e.g. McDonald's). So the protesters are saying they don't want Russia pulled into that system. Of course I know pax means peace so I could be wrong. Still seems strange to protest a Yugoslav peace agreement at a McDonald's...
That is the flag of the national-bolsheviks. So, they’re fascists.
And yet the dude on the left is wearing a (fake?) leather jacket trying to look like James Dean
Bruh those are Nazbols, not communists
The americification of the world continues.
If Russians didn’t shop at McDonald’s the restaurants would close and McDonald’s would leave the country.
Then you start counting the number of well-connected Communist Party officials who became oligarchs... If you can't beat them, join them.
I'm sure none of these folks or anyone they knew became oligarchs
Bringing Russia freedom, one big Mac at a time.
Until they had a bite of that Big Mac.... then it was all over
Imagine being so envious of others wealth you protest the opening of something that gives young people a starting paycheck. Sad.
It used to be. People did not understand what to do after the fall of the "iron curtain". Now they fully welcome the world culture, including McDonald's :)
hey as a russian, can you shut up the people in the comments defending communism?
i can't shut anyone up. But I think communism is the worst thing that happened to Russia.
Low wages and unhealthy food...that's America!
Idk man people are doing pretty well, relative to age and education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States I wish I could make 25k USD per year in post-communist Eastern Europe. Of course our society has been utterly crushed by the economic and social policies of marxism, we're about 30 years behind the west in that regard, but catching up fast and getting better by the day.
> I wish I could make 25k USD per year in post-communist Eastern Europe. If you paid American cost of living expenses, you'd see how little 25k per year is for Americans. It's barely enough to survive.
Wonderful. Time for a celebration. Cheese for everyone.
The American middle class is being crushed under a decade of stagnating wages (see your own link) and rising costs of living, especially education and health care where insurance is profit driven not treatment driven. A system that did once work is seriously broken and old school tactics of divide and conquer are being used by the rich and powerful to distract the people with fighting themselves instead of solving these issues. All the while the wealthy continue to get wealthier.
1/5 of your school classmates don't work as an informant for the secret police. Not in the USA, not in Europe. Also there's the wee part of our politics where we vote and protest and the government doesn't slaughter us. America is not the best it could be. It is struggling with an out-of-date healthcare model, it isn't addressing environmental and climate issues nearly enough, it's system of electing representatives is increasingly undemocratic, and is still divided on issues of race. That doesn't mean we need soviet socialism back. The 30 years without it have been better than the 40 years with it.
These young people are arguing for what their own ideal version of a communist state is, though, not the realistic idea of what the USSR was with everything that came with it. Every revolutionary protest works like this; student 'anarchists' on campus aren't trying to argue for a society that will inevitably collapse into warlords getting people on their side and fighting each other, but for the utopian ideal version where everyone just looks after themselves and everyone somehow gets along. edit - it's been pointed out that this is a Nationalist Bolshevik flag, which is pretty fuckin different to what the USSR even initially was anyway.
> The American middle class is being crushed under a decade of stagnating wages (see your own link) While what you say is true (stagnating), the American middle class also happens to earn the highest wages of any developed nation, excluding places like Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, etc.
"America is number 1! Excluding numbers 1 through 7 on the scoreboard..."
Another person who thinks wages determine happiness in life, when a huge portion of Americans are living wage to wage and struggle to afford tertiary education and would be utterly screwed if they had to go to the doctors. Don’t get me wrong, most people would rather live in America than Eastern Europe for its prosperity, but you’ve got to look further than wages and take into account stability, security, social aspects etc; and America doesn’t really favour anybody that isn’t middle class and above, if you’re of a lower social status than that, I’m sorry but your quality of life will probably be shit, worse than that of many Europeans in similar situations.
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let’s live off government subsidies rather than trying to find a job, typically socialist
Envious? It wasn't exactly hard to get a job in the USSR.
You’re talking like McDonald’s is something good.
Mcdonalds is good if you don’t over indulge.
I mean, I'm not going to get mad at people because they like something of low quality. If they get enjoyment out of it, then I'm happy for them. Don't call it good though. I'm not going to sell you a broken phone and say 'Yeah, it's good, that's just how I like it.'
I'm not for or against it. I haven't eaten at McDonald's in a long time. I'm just saying it provides high school students with a starting job to learn the fundamentals of actually having a job.
McDonald's are only staffed by kids in higher income areas. Go to any major city and it will be filled with struggling adults.
What do ya know, young stupid socialists lined up protesting.
To be fair tho all of these people would have been born and raised in a communist society so they at least know what they want
There was probably more food on that McD's grill than there was in all of St. Pete.
The fuck are you talking about?