Moscow's Big Mak Attack

By ANN BLACKMAN MOSCOW

Sixteen-year-old Nadya Vanova listens intently as a customer orders a Big Mak, kartofel-fries and an ice-cream koktel, or milkshake. After punching the order into one of 29 computerized cash registers, she nods and says, "Thank you. Please come again." But assistant manager Sergei Skvortsov, 25, shakes his head unhappily as he observes her trial run. "Nyet," he tells the nervous trainee. "Try again. You must look each customer in the eye and smile."

Young Nadya is one of 605 employees chosen from 27,000 Soviet applicants who responded to a small help-wanted ad that McDonald's officials placed last November. After 14 years of negotiating a maze of Soviet bureaucrats, the first McDonald's in the Soviet Union is scheduled to open this week. Situated on Pushkin Square, just a few blocks from the Kremlin, the restaurant will introduce a new concept: fast food. To handle the anticipated Big Mak attack, the McDonald's has a seating capacity of 700, the largest in the 11,300- restaurant chain, and can serve as many as 15,000 customers a day.

McDonald's has built restaurants from Seattle to Singapore, but completing the first of 20 planned outlets in the Soviet Union was a triumph over the country's endless red tape and ancient infrastructure. A joint venture of the Canadian subsidiary of McDonald's and the Moscow city council, the $50 million project fell through several times before it was finally signed in April 1988. Says George Cohon, president of McDonalds Restaurants of Canada: "When I had that first cheeseburger off the grill, I thought, 'This place is really going to open!' "

The biggest problem has been dealing with the Soviet ministries, which still adhere to rigid regulations in doling out precious supplies. Explains Cohon: "When we need more sand or gravel for building and go to the department in charge, they say, 'Sorry, you're not in my five-year plan.' "

The venture intends to buy virtually all its raw materials from Soviet producers, no small order in a country where many food products are rationed and the term quality control is not in the lexicon. The Moscow managers have imported potato and cucumber seeds from the Netherlands and have trained Soviet farmers to harvest and pack the produce without bruising it. They have taught Soviet cattle farmers that they can raise leaner beef by castrating their cattle a month later than usual and slaughtering them a month earlier. To maintain food standards and keep the supply flowing, the company has built a $40 million food-distribution plant just outside Moscow, with its own bakery, dairy and meat-processing units as well as a microbiology lab.

Starting salary at the Moscow McDonald's is 1.5 rubles an hour, average by Soviet standards and about $2.40 at the official exchange rate, but top managers can expect to earn more substantial wages. Alexander Omelchenko, 31, the dairy-line manager, says he earned 250 rubles a month working in a scientific institute before being hired by McDonald's. "I now make 450 rubles a month," he says proudly. "McDonald's is more demanding, but it offers me a chance to prove myself."

During the month before the grand opening, 30 Soviet restaurant managers who had trained for several months in Europe and Toronto instructed new employees in company standards of quality, politeness and service. "Smiling and looking people in the eye are not things they do naturally," says a McDonald's executive. Using manuals translated into Russian and videotapes, the trainees have learned everything from how to wash windows and mop floors to the proper way to assemble a Big Mac. Customers have some learning to do too. Because Soviets are unaccustomed to eating finger food, many of those invited to a preview disassembled the Big Mak and ate it layer by layer. Despite the cultural hurdles, Cohon is enthusiastic about the huge potential market and optimistic about the adaptability of the people. Says he: "Soviet kids win a lot of medals in the Olympics. We can train them to work in McDonald's."

Unlike most Western companies doing business in the Soviet Union, McDonald's is catering not just to foreign tourists and businessmen but also to the Soviet public. The first Moscow-based restaurant will deal in rubles, a shrewd strategy that is expected to attract local customers, who have grown increasingly impatient at seeing quality products on sale for foreign currency only. But because rubles are not readily convertible to foreign currency, McDonald's will have to find ways to take home some of its Soviet profits. As a result, McDonald's will open another Moscow restaurant next year in which foreign customers can pay for their food in hard currency only.

With the Big Mak, kartofel-fries and a koktel priced at about 5.5 rubles, or twice the cost of a meal in a state-run cafeteria, McDonald's must pitch its fare to higher-income patrons. Even so, one thing about the new McDonald's may be familiar to the Soviets: long lines.