I've heard the story before, about how Gorbachev only did the shoot because he was broke, and that the commercial was never intended for a Russian audience. However, I'm also aware that Yeltsin's economic reforms severely damaged the Russian economy and that food shortages grew worse, and that according to Wikipedia the Moscow restaurant the commercial was filmed in shut just a year later.
Could a seemingly-typical Russian (ideally Muscovite) working class or lower-middle class family as depicted in the ad have ever actually been able to afford a family meal at Pizza Hut in 1997-1998?
This is a fun question, so I did a little bit of reading of news articles from the time. Pizza Hut started operating in Russia in 1990, but it never had a nationwide presence as far as I can tell based on this CBS article from 1998. Instead, they had four huge locations, two in St. Petersburg and two in Moscow. According to a NYT article from 1990,, the two Moscow locations together sat 445 people and potentially serve 50,000 people a week. They were clearly expecting a high volume, which to me suggests a less fancy-schmancy experience. A UPI article from the same period puts another location’s PPD (pizza production per diem) at 3000. it’s hard to believe it’s super bougie with those numbers. At the same time, your instinct that it might not be affordable is back up by some anecdotal evidence. In the UPI report, they interviewed people waiting in line for hours to get seated. How did that crowd perceive it?
“'Besides the wait, it is not cheap,' said Vadim Maximov as he neared the entrance after sharing a four-hour wait with friends. 'I came because it is the first time it is open. We will see.'”
Hmm. Pretty damning. The reviews of the post-wait experience are also not so shiny. In my unprofessional opinion, it was probably like a shitty Benihana, or CRAVE if you’re in minnesota (and probably other places, god forbid). Not genuinely, truly fancy, but instead a middling restaurant with exorbitant but potentially attainable prices for an underwhelming but unique experience. It would be interesting to see someone crunch the numbers by finding like, average wages in those cities AND the actual prices and comparing them, but so far I haven’t found anything as granular as the second and I’m not qualified to talk about the first.