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The world's largest companies continue to abandon Russia after it invaded Ukraine
Most multinational2 companies have cut ties with Russia. An era of economic openness that started when McDonald's opened its first restaurant in Moscow in 1990, is coming to a close.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Goldman Sachs is the first big American bank to announce it's leaving Russia over the country's invasion of Ukraine. It's just one of the latest companies in a growing mass exodus3 that also includes Apple, McDonald's and Pepsi. As NPR's David Gura reports, this major economic blow also signals a seismic4 shift.
DAVID GURA, BYLINE5: Each company's departure confirms a pivotal chapter in Russia's recent history is coming to an end, some three decades after it got started in January of 1990. That's when the Soviet6 Union really started to open up its economy after decades of isolation7, and global broadcasters, including ABC and the CBC, were there to mark the transition.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Well, it's been 14 years in the making, and today, finally, McDonald's threw open the doors to its first restaurant in Moscow.
GURA: That four-story building on Pushkin Square was at first a spectacle, but it became a kind of landmark8. Thousands of curious customers lined up on opening day to buy fries and Big Macs - which weren't cheap, by the way, as Bob Edwards noted9 on MORNING EDITION.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
BOB EDWARDS: At 3 rubles and 75 kopeks, it costs about 13% of the average worker's weekly salary.
GURA: And not lost on the reporters who were there - including Ann Cooper, who was NPR's Moscow correspondent - was the significance of what McDonald's was doing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
ANN COOPER: It's an ambitious attempt to introduce some basic concepts of capitalism10 in a state-controlled economy.
GURA: Not long after, as the twilight11 of the Soviet Union gave way to the dawn of a new Russia, just about every major multinational followed in McDonald's footsteps. Russia became part of the global economy. Starbucks opened its first store in 2007. You could buy cars from General Motors, Harley-Davidsons and Apple iPhones. Then, two weeks ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. Oil giant BP decided12 to leave Russia, and that led to an exodus. This week, under mounting pressure, McDonald's decided to suspend its operations in Russia. It will close its restaurants in some 850 locations across the country.
DANIEL TREISMAN: It's really a shocking reversal.
GURA: Daniel Treisman is a professor of political science at UCLA, and he was a regular at that first Pushkin Square McDonald's when he lived in Moscow in the early 1990s. At a time when store shelves were bare and there were long lines for bread, he could count on it for a reliable meal. Now that's over.
TREISMAN: The Iron Curtain is coming down again, or a different kind of curtain's coming down. And I think Russians are just horrified13 at losing connection to this world that they've been living in for the last 30 years.
GURA: This will have a profound effect on the Russian people, Treisman says, and also on Russia's economy. McDonald's says it plans to continue paying salaries to its 62,000 workers, but other companies have not made the same commitment. The unemployment rate is going to surge, and the collapse14 in the ruble will fuel widespread inflation. So there will be hardship. But Chris Miller15, an historian at Tufts University, says it's really more than that.
CHRIS MILLER: It's not just a question of statistics of the economy shrinking a couple percentage points or inflation going up a couple of percentage points.
GURA: Russians will no doubt miss being able to buy electronics and clothing from brands like Levi's. But Miller says the departure of so many companies marks a return to isolation from the global economy.
MILLER: Russia has gotten access to foreign consumer goods and also a lot of technology and expertise16 from Western firms. And in the past couple of weeks, all that's been thrown into a very rapid reverse.
GURA: Russia has come to rely heavily on imports, and Russian firms, Miller notes, have become integrated with global supply chains. Just like in the Soviet days, domestic industry is not evolved enough to step up.
MILLER: Russia's entire industrial economy is going to face wrenching17 difficulties as they try - in many cases, I think, fail - to find alternatives to Western products.
GURA: And those wrenching difficulties, he says, will throw into sharp relief how President Putin's gambit has made Russia a pariah18.
David Gura, NPR News, New York.
1 transcript | |
n.抄本,誊本,副本,肄业证书 | |
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2 multinational | |
adj.多国的,多种国籍的;n.多国籍公司,跨国公司 | |
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3 exodus | |
v.大批离去,成群外出 | |
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4 seismic | |
a.地震的,地震强度的 | |
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5 byline | |
n.署名;v.署名 | |
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6 Soviet | |
adj.苏联的,苏维埃的;n.苏维埃 | |
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7 isolation | |
n.隔离,孤立,分解,分离 | |
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8 landmark | |
n.陆标,划时代的事,地界标 | |
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9 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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10 capitalism | |
n.资本主义 | |
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11 twilight | |
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
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12 decided | |
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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13 horrified | |
a.(表现出)恐惧的 | |
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14 collapse | |
vi.累倒;昏倒;倒塌;塌陷 | |
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15 miller | |
n.磨坊主 | |
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16 expertise | |
n.专门知识(或技能等),专长 | |
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17 wrenching | |
n.修截苗根,苗木铲根(铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土)v.(猛力地)扭( wrench的现在分词 );扭伤;使感到痛苦;使悲痛 | |
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18 pariah | |
n.被社会抛弃者 | |
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