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APPHSERVICE WITH A SMILE: Russian President Boris Yeltsin, left, presented George Coh senior chairman of McDonald’s restaurants of Canada, with the Order of Friendship awartThere is such an inordinate amour of it here.Over the past couple years Mc-Donald’s has opened restaurants inMu^ujw tu'j — A beaming George Cohon, Canada's self-described champion of burger diplomacy, received the Order of Friendship award from President Boris Yeltsin Thursday for bringing McDonald’s community work to Russia.I’ve been working in your country for over 20 years and this award means a lot to me, the senior chairman of McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada told Yeltsin after receiving the medal in the Kremlin’s St. George's Hall.It's not only business that I do here, it's love for the people and charitable work with young people.Cohon, 60, started the first McDonald’s in Moscow in 1990. Today, the chain employs 6,000 and operates 33 restaurants, three office buildings, a food processing plant and an activity centre for disabled children in Russia.It’s not really a Canadian success story, it’s a Russian success story, Cohon said after the ceremony. We’ve put the emphasis on hiring and promoting Russians, using Russian suppliers, integrating into the community here. ’ ’The Order of Friendship, a silver five-pointed star with gold overlay and a green silk band, is awarded by the Russian government for great labor achievements and promotion of peace and friendship between nations.One other Canadian, Arctic explorer Richard Weber of Chelsea, Que., has received it. Weber and his Russian partner Misha Malakhov became the first to ski to the North Pole and back without outside help in 1995.Cohon was the only foreigner among nearly 40 people decorated by Yeltsin Thursday. The recipients included Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47, who has sold almost as many assault rifles around the world as Cohon has Big Macs.It took nearly 12 years of negotiations to get the former Soviet government to let Cohon open his first restaurant. The outlet on Moscow’s Pushkin Square is still the world’s largest McDonald’s.In the Soviet Union there was very little appreciation of the way business is done in the West,” Cohon said.“When we started talking with them it was the height of the Cold War — and we were the enemy. It was like we had horns on, or something.To this day it’s hard to get many Russians to accept a capitalist enterprise would donate some of its profits to charity, he said. That’s what we got the award for today, and 1 feel vindicated by that.Cohon pointed to the new Ronald McDonald House in Moscow’s Olympic Centre — modelled on a similar facility in Toronto — which provides training and recreation for about 800 disabled children per week.Ten years ago Cohon formed a partnership with the Moscow city government, an arrangement that helped smooth his way through Russia’s bureaucratic jungle.I don’t know whether the expression Ted tape’ was invented in Russia, but it should have been, he said.St. Petersburg, Nizhni Novgorod an several Moscow satellite towns. Wlt; have 33 stores now, and 50 by the ei of this year. By the year 2000, mayblt; 100.He admits the difficulties of expanding beyond Moscow into the undeveloped and sometimes hostih Russian hinterland are still legion.The biggest problem is to ensure supply lines,” he said. Infrastructu around this country is still very weak.What’s the point of opening a M Donald’s somewhere and then have to tell people you can’t sell them a E Mac on any given day?”But he insisted he has never encountered some of the perils otfa Canadian businessmen report, sucl as having to deal with criminal protection rackets or corrupt officials.“Whenever we come to a region \ talk to the top political people and ask:1 Is it safe to be in this region?’ 1 he said. We've been given these assurances.”
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