Twenty years ago, the first McDonalds in the Soviet Union opened on Moscow's central Pushkin Square.
To mark the 20th anniversary of the event on Sunday -- which appeared to foreshadow the collapse of communism -- McDonalds sent a string of directors to the snow-bound Russian capital, including Chief Executive Jim Skinner.
A total of 30,000 Soviet citizens tasted hamburgers and Coca-Cola in McDonald's on the first day of opening, setting a new record for the number of first day visits in the restaurant's history.
Although the massive queues of those first days have since disappeared, the restaurant still gets more visitors per year than any other McDonalds in the world.
Skinner said the formula of success was the size of the restaurant.
First of all, it was built big. You indicated earlier the queues were around the block when we first opened this restaurant, and it has continued this way. We serve almost two million guests a year here in this restaurant and it is a big restaurant. We built it for big volume to serve the number of people that wanted to visit McDonalds, said Skinner.
He said Pushkinkaya restaurant can serve some 700-900 people simultaneously.
Muscovites queued for hours to sample the fast food burgers for the first time, while excited diners took home used paper cups and straws as presents for their children. People in Moscow still remember the queue outside the restaurant that lasted for days.
I remember it, I stood here in a queue that circled three times around the Pushkin square, I was with my mama, I remember. It was something out of the ordinary and I realy wanted to see it, we had only heard of it but never seen it, and then suddenly there it was, it was so unusual, 52-year-old Muscovite Vichslav said.
After the success of the first restaurant, a second and third followed. Now, some 218 McDonalds restaurants are open across Russia, serving a total of 600,000 people daily.
While many restaurants in Russia had trouble staying open during the global economic crisis, McDonalds saw its number of visitors grow.
Value across the menu and the opportunity for us to be able to serve customers at a time when they are being pinched every place else, they can come to McDonalds and certainly take part in the value across the menu, said Skinner.
The burger chain plans to have nearly 300 outlets in Russia by the end of this year, while arch rival Burger King opened its first store just last month.
While most Russians seems to love the American fast-food, not everyone agrees.
I never go to McDonalds, for me it's idiotic stuff. I only eat Russian things, things that are home-cooked, one customer said said.
