Golden Gates greet Golden Arches: Big Mac and McNuggets arrive in Kyiv

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The golden arches of McDonald's will soon beckon Kyiv's restaurant-goers as they do in almost every major city around the globe.

The world-famous leader in the number of hamburger and french fries sold - with a claim of "billions and billions served" - will open its first Kyiv restaurant before the end of May, said the firm's Ukraine marketing supervisor, Julia Chernova, on March 6. "We are targeting our opening for the Kyiv Days at the end of May," she said.

The firm has not decided which store will open first. At the moment, two restaurants are in the process of being prepared: one below the Khreshchatyk in the underground metro station and one near the just completed Lukianivsky metro station, where the ground-breaking for the restaurant took place on February 14.

Two more restaurants are scheduled to follow: one on Sevastopolsky Square, which will be a drive-through, and one in the Podil section of Kyiv at Poshtova Ploshcha.

In all, 30 restaurants are scheduled to be constructed in Kyiv, with seven to be opened by the end of 1997. McDonald's-Ukraine plans 85 fast food restaurants in Ukraine by the year 2000 - an investment of $120 million that will create 5,000 new jobs.

But will it be the same as biting into a Big Mac at home, with a handful of golden fries, all gulped down with a cola? Ms. Chernova said the experience will be identical. "We will recreate the same image in Ukraine," she said. "We will use the same designs and the same menu."

She also said that, at first, many of the products will be imported but that the goal is to eventually produce everything in Ukraine. Right now the company has contracts for lettuce, which will come from Crimea, and beef, which will be delivered from Luhansk.

With the Big Mac, QuarterPounder and McNuggets on the way, and knowing McDonald's past attempts to put local fare on its menu in other foreign countries, can McVarenyk be far behind? Or how about McSalo (nugget size, of course)?

The possibilities boggle the mind.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 23, 1997, No. 12, Vol. LXV

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