This is the queue on the opening day of the first McDonald's restaurant in Moscow. 1990!

MOSCOW (AP) _ Thousands of queue-hardened Soviets on Wednesday cheerfully lined up to get a taste of ''gamburgers,'' ''chizburgers'' and ''Filay-o-feesh'' sandwiches as McDonald's opened in the land of Lenin for the first time.

The world's largest version of the landmark U.S. fast-food chain rang up 30,000 meals on 27 cash registers, breaking the opening-day record for McDonald's worldwide, officials said.

30,000 people lined up in 1990 to wait on line and eat the first Mcdonalds to open in the city. 30,000! THAT IS LIKE...HALF OF 60,000!

The Moscow McDonalds is the largest in the world. The expansion of McDonald's Canada to Russia was accomplished after thirteen years of difficult negotiations and an investment of $50 million.

Technically, the first McDonalds in Moscow, Russia, opened on Jan. 31, 1990 but that's close enough to the '80s, isn't it? I mean, construction must have begun during our decade. And hell, the Russians were probably just then getting around to listening to the soft FM hits of the early '80s from America. "Some Fogelberg with your fries, comrade?" (Truth be told, the McDonalds corportation got permission to build the restaurant in 1988.)

McDonald's has built an entirely indepdent Russian organization with its own farms to supply potatoes and it's own processing plants to make hamburger buns, apple pies, and other food products for the restaurant. Profits will be small at first, with a 50-50 split between the company and the Russian government. Business is conducted entirely in Russian rubles that are nearly worthless outside the country. If McDonald's Canada wants to take any profit out of Russia they will have to do so by buying Russian products with rubles and then exporting them to Europe or North America for sale.