McDonald's and the Opening and Closing of the Russian Economy

Join the history department welcome Dr. Kristy Ironside for her lecture on: 

"McDonald's and the Opening and Closing of the Russian Economy."

McDonald’s arrival in Moscow in January 1990 seemingly heralded the country’s opening up to the West after decades of Cold War isolation; its decision to pull out in 2022 in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine brought that chapter to a close. This talk will discuss what motivated both Soviet officials and McDonald’s executives to bring the restaurant to Moscow in the first place, as well as the company’s unique place in Russia’s economic and political relationship with the West between its much-celebrated entry and its decision to leave.

Dr. Ironside is an Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar in the Department of History & Classical Studies at McGill University.  She is the author of the award-winning book, A Full-Value Ruble: The Promise of Prosperity in the Postwar Soviet Union (Harvard University Press, 2021). Her talk stems from a current book project, McDonald’s and the Opening and Closing of Russia, which looks at its economic transformation from the late Soviet period to the present through the lens of the multinational fast food chain’s presence there.