So the scenes from 1990 have almost repeated themselves three decades later, albeit in a very different context. When McDonald’s announced the temporary closing of its more than 800 restaurants in Russia in early March, before this week’s decision to exit the country permanently, long lines were seen outside its facilities as Russians came to get what could be their last-ever golden-arched burgers and fries. One Russian man even handcuffed himself to the door of a Moscow McDonald’s in protest, shouting “Closing down is an act of hostility against me and my fellow citizens!” before being arrested.

For Bakhti Nishanov, a Eurasia specialist who grew up in the Soviet Union, the departure is oddly emotional. “It’s truly weird how this hits me. It’s almost like hope leaving the country,” he told CNBC. “This has a massive symbolic importance: McDonald’s coming to Russia, then part of the Soviet Union, was an implicit signal to the world that Russia is open for business. The company leaving Russia is an explicit signal that the country is no longer a place you want to be in as a business,” Nishanov said.

“I first read about the McDonald’s in Russia in a youth magazine called Yunniy Tehnik,” Nishanov recounted. “I was absolutely mesmerized and fascinated by the article and the idea that one, for a relatively modest amount of money, can too be part of the American culture that McDonald’s was a tangible representation of.”

“To a generation of Russians, McDonald’s — commonly referred to as MakDak — was a fascinating phenomenon,” he added. “Clearly connected to the American culture, yet very much part of their daily lives and, in a way, less foreign or alien than many other brands.”

...

Politically, the golden arches also went a long way, says Tricia Starks, a professor of history at the University of Arkansas and author of the forthcoming book “Cigarettes and Soviets.”

“The American way of consumption was a crucial soft-diplomacy front in the Cold War … acquainting the Soviets with America’s material standards was another field of battle,” Starks said. A few other brands took on this role in the USSR before McDonald’s did, namely Pepsi in 1972 and Marlboro in 1976.

But McDonalds, unlike a can of Pepsi or a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, “was a totally immersive experience of capitalism’s sensual joys,” she said.

“From the moment you stepped in, it was an entirely different experience than a Soviet restaurant. You were greeted with smiles and shouts of ‘Can I help you?’ Products were of consistent quality and always consumable. The burgers were hot!”

This was a culture shock to Soviet denizens, many of whom expressed confusion when staff would smile at them. “When I smile, people are asking what’s wrong, they think I am laughing at them,” one Russian employee at the McDonald’s opening day in 1990 told a reporter.

“When you were done, a worker would come and whisk away the trash, and the showplace on Pushkin Square was kept clean despite the thousands who would come by through the day — some of them waiting hours to spend a full month’s wages on dinner for a family of four,” Starks described, noting that customer service was simply not a concept in the USSR. “Service was a side product of a McDonald’s experience.”

Not all Russians feel bad about the golden arches leaving. “Hello Americans … We want to thank you for all your sanctions, for taking away from our country Coca Cola, KFC, McDonald’s and all that sh--. Now by summer we will be healthy, strong and without ass fat,” Russian influencer and comedian Natasha Krasnova wrote in an Instagram post in March that was viewed more than 5 million times.

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“McDonald’s leaving Russia hits many of my generation differently,” he said, “I think because it represented — and I know this sounds dramatic — hope and optimism. The company leaving confirms Putin’s Russia is a place devoid of those two things.”

• Cosmopolitan no more: Russians feel sting of cultural and economic rift Guardian

Compare this article to the one all the way up there in Economically about Europe.

“When I had my first child, there was all this choice. Mothercare, Zara, you name it,” said Evgenia Marsheva, a 33-year-old architect. But when she went shopping in Moscow this month for her newborn, many of those large retail brands had been shuttered.

“Now, I can only find very cheap or extremely expensive Russian products. I was brought up with tales of the limited choices that my parents had during the Soviet Union. I never thought that would come back.”

Three months into the war, Russia has become the most sanctioned country in the world, and almost 1,000 foreign brands – the majority of them voluntarily – have curtailed their operations there, according to records kept by the Yale School of Management. The exodus of companies continued this week with McDonald’s officially announcing it would leave Russia after three decades.

According to estimates by officials, the Russian economy is expected to contract by between 8 and 12% in 2022. Car sales, an indicator often used by experts to measure the economic mood, fell by almost 80% in April, the largest drop on record. Meanwhile, the country’s central bank has predicted an inflation rate between 18 and 23% this year.

In a recent survey by the independent Levada Center, 85% of Russians polled said now was a bad time for big purchases, the highest level in more than a decade, while more than 60% of Russians said they had no savings.

“The government has created a false sense of stability. But the long-term picture is damning,” said Shagina.

While the slow-burning sanctions might not force Vladimir Putin to change his actions in Ukraine, the pressure on the Kremlin would rise “dramatically” if the European Union proceeded with its plans to decouple from Russian oil and gas, she said.

“As long as Russia has its revenues from gas and oil it can sustain the war. It will be a huge blow to the Kremlin if they lose that cash cow.”

“The cultural isolation is maybe even scarier for me than the economic one,” said Katya Fedorova, a former fashion editor who now runs a widely read lifestyle and fashion blog on Telegram.

“I remember summers spent in Moscow hopping from an exhibition by Juergen Teller to one by Murakami, dancing at music festivals where the international lineups would rival the best European concerts,” Fedorova recalled. Western fashion executives would marvel when she took them around town, commenting on how “modern and happening” the city was.

• Azov Battalion evacuates dead after fighters stop defending Mariupol steel plant EuroNews

"stop defending" is certainly one phrase for it.

• Russia is desperate for more soldiers and likely to redeploy troops too quickly after Mariupol siege, UK intel says BusinessInsider

They're never happy, are they? Russia is either acting too quickly, or too slowly.

• Before-and-after photos show the personal toll of Ukraine's war on Zelenskyy since he took office 3 years ago BusinessInsider

He's an actor, through and through.

Climate

• Most of US will see above-average temperatures as Western drought continues CNN

Nearly the entire contiguous US is expected to have above-normal temperatures this summer, which runs from June through August, according to Thursday's Climate Prediction Center's outlook. The combination of hotter weather and below-average rainfall is expected to fuel the megadrought that covers much of the West.

Unfortunately, the outlook for precipitation remains low across the west as well, with the lowest chances of rainfall from central Wyoming into northern Texas. The only area with above-average precipitation probabilities is found along the Gulf coastal region and Florida.

• Cold wave hits southern Brazil with record-low temperatures France24

• Kenya: Bees at risk from pesticides and habitat loss AfricaNews

In Kenya, environmental scientists are calling for a new multidisciplinary approach that involves farmers, beekeepers and environmentalists.

Samuel Mwaniki, is a beekeeper in Kitui County, Kenya. He says that lack of rainfall and the use of pesticides to combat 2021's locust invasion devastated his hives.

• The climate scientists are not alright WaPo

Frustration, rage, terror, desperation: After decades of being ignored, scientists are resorting to more radical action to communicate the dire urgency of the climate crisis.

• Climate change likely to reduce the amount of sleep that people get per year ScienceDaily

I Thought I'd Mention

• WHO Convenes Emergency Meeting on Monkeypox Outbreak TeleSUR

• U.S. government places $119 million order for 13 million freeze-dried Monkeypox vaccines Fortune

• Mozambique confirms first wild poliovirus case in 30 years Guardian