The first McDonald's restaurant in Moscow opened in 1990.
The Moscow opening was a major branding event because it brought an instantly recognizable Western restaurant chain into the Soviet Union during a period of political and economic change. The restaurant opened on January 31, 1990, in Pushkin Square.
McDonald's had spent years preparing for the launch, including developing local supply relationships and quality-control systems. The opening attracted enormous public interest, with long lines that became a widely reported image of the changing era.
The Moscow restaurant is sometimes dated to the start of negotiations rather than the public opening. Negotiations and preparation began years earlier, but 1990 is the year customers could first visit a McDonald's in the Soviet Union.