Fast food

New Moscow Wendy's restaurant

  Last week the third major American hamburger chain, Wendy's opened in Moscow. Burger King had their debut last year and McDonald's arrived way back in 1990. In an article from the Moscow Times yesterday:

“The restaurant will offer an American menu of hamburgers, cheeseburgers, salads and roast beef sandwiches. The average bill will run 250 rubles ($9), or $3 to $4 more than in the United States. Wenrus projects annual revenue of $1.5 million to $1.6 million per store, roughly 40 percent higher than at a store in the United States.”

Myself in the Worker's Paradise

  Things have certainly changed since my youth. I went on a camping trip through part of Russia with a group of Aussies with whom I connected in the part of London known as Earlscourt a.k.a Kangaroo land and survived on Finish flatbread, caviar ($1 US per jar) and Kvass that we purchased in pails from miniature tankers which drove around the streets. The ice cream from the street vendors was also very good although I found the bread from the stores a bit doughy for my taste. We also had a stash of Swan beer, Australia’s favourite which we were lucky enough to smuggle across the Finno-Russian border. In the previous picture you can see me wearing my Canadian t-shirt in front of the statue of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg. Printed on the back of it were the words “Canadian National Drinking Team.”  Bad idea! I seem to remember couples who had just been married arriving in cars for photos at the statue. The cars had dolls or teddy bears tied to the bumpers.

Moscow

  We got along with the locals very well. The picture of me with the hot Russian chick was taken in the grounds of the USSR exhibition of economic achievements where we learned that every major invention of the last one hundred years was created by Russians before those capitalist, imperialist swine stole the plans using traitors and spies. There was variation in the campgrounds from pleasant huts on the shore of the Baltic to openings in a white birch forest beside a mosquito invested swamp.

  I’ll bet that Wendy’s didn’t use this ad in their Russian commercials.