Friday, March 18, 2022

Moscow to Give Out Grants for Russian Fast Food Restaurants to Replace Shuttered Western Ones

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 13 – In a move highlighting how much Russians have come to depend on Western fast food restaurants and how Russia continues to depend on the government rather than the economy to respond to change, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin has announced he will award grants to those who come up with and open Russian “quick service” restaurants.

            In response to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, the McDonald’s corporation has temporarily closed all 850 of its restaurants in the Russian Federation. Other Western franchisees have stopped work in their establishments in Russia as well (dailystorm.ru/news/makdonalds-vremenno-zakryvaet-vse-850-restoranov-v-rossii-iz-za-voennoy-operacii-na-ukraine).

            Because many Russians have come to rely on these facilities, Russian officials are scrambling to come up with alternatives. In the capital, Mayor Sobyanin has announced that his government will now accept applications for grants to those who open Russian fast food restaurants and hire Russians to operate them (mos.ru/mayor/themes/12299/8148050/).

            Russian leaders like former president Dmitry Medvedev are confident that Russians will be able to produce equally attractive or even better fast food than their Western counterparts and that the Western firms will thus find it difficult to return to Russia in the future (dailystorm.ru/news/medvedev-peredal-privet-makdonaldsu-i-zayavil-chto-v-rossii-umeyut-delat-kotlety-s-bulkami).

 

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