Big Mac Attack, Soviet-Style : Russian Ship Places Very American Order: 150 Burgers and Fries to Go

Lunch was about to be served on the sunny deck of the Yuzhmorgeologiya, a huge Soviet oceanographic research ship that was docked in the Port of Long Beach.

Borscht was not on the menu.

Up the gangway came employees of McDonald’s with what these Russian scientists and crew members, eager for a taste of America, had requested in a ship-to-shore call:

Big Macs and fries.

The Russians, many with gold teeth and clad in jeans and sandals, had on the red McDonald’s hats they had been given for the occasion Tuesday afternoon by representatives of Gelman & Gray, a firm that handles the restaurant’s public relations.

Having arrived Monday after a monthlong voyage, the visitors were joined in Long Beach by a group of American scientists connected with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The joint contingent will sail to an area of the Pacific Ocean near the Equator to evaluate the environmental effects of deep-sea manganese mining.

Craig Smith of the University of Hawaii, the project’s chief scientist, said there is a fear that sea animals will be smothered during the mining, which is not expected to start for about 20 years. “We’re getting a head start,” he said.

Lending expertise to the expedition will be Vasily Nedelsky, 35, a bespectacled mathematician who also seemed to know something about Big Macs. He said he had been to the McDonald’s in Moscow, which opened early this year.

“Taste good,” he said. “I think all the people on the ship will like Big Macs.”

The fast food was foreign to many of the visitors, who live in Gelenghik near the Black Sea, far from Moscow.

“It will be good if in Soviet Union . . . sorry for my bad English . . . if there will be more McDonald’s,” Nedelsky said.

He said he normally eats fish, roast beef and vegetables.

And borscht?

“Yes,” he said with a smile, thinking of the Russian beet soup.

Vodka?

“A little on holiday.”

He watched his countrymen happily chomp into the hamburgers and mingle with the U.S. group, though most could not understand a word that was said.

Glasnost?

“Great,” Nedelsky said. “Russians like Americans, Americans like Russians. I think it’s great nonsense that people too many times think one is enemy for the other. We must work together.”

While the 150 hamburgers and 150 packets of fries were being consumed, the scientists and crew members moved to the cable-cluttered bow of the 340-foot ship and posed for a group photograph.

The restaurant’s famous clown twisted a balloon into the shape of a poodle and autographed it for motorman Sergey Shreum.

“For my child, Olga, she is 15,” Shreum said as he squeaked the poodle.

And then, in the American way, Ronald McDonald slipped the Russian his business card.