February 04, 2020

No Cheap Burger for You


No Cheap Burger for You
Hope you have some extra rubles for that burger. McDonald's Israel [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

A planned sale at the McDonald’s on Pushkin Square was cancelled due to the risk of coronavirus infection. The sale was intended to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the store’s opening. To commemorate, the store was planning to sell hamburgers and cheeseburgers at the original 1990s price of R3 (five cents today; about 2 bucks 50 back then, per the official rate exchange rate). Happy meals and fries were set to be sold at R30 (approximately 50 cents).

Unfortunately for McDonald’s lovers, the company cancelled the anniversary event after Moscow government officials suggested calling off events in crowded spaces to avoid the risk of spreading coronavirus infections. They company is thinking of other ways to celebrate the anniversary.

The first McDonald’s opened in Russia on January 31, 1990, in Pushkin Square. On its opening day it served over 30,000 customers, setting a world record. Since then, in the 30 years McDonald’s has been operating in Russia, more than 140 million people have been served.

Tags: Mcdonald's
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Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

The Moscow Eccentric
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The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.

Jews in Service to the Tsar
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Life Stories
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Life Stories

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.

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Faith & Humor

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Little Golden Calf

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White Magic

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The Little Humpbacked Horse

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