Women walk past a McDonald’s restaurant closed to visitors in St. Petersburg, Russia, Tuesday, March 15, 2022. (AP Photo)
(NEXSTAR) – After McDonald’s decided to temporarily shutter hundreds of locations in Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, items such as Big Macs and even sauce are being offered up online – many at wildly inflated prices.
The second-hand hamburgers are now being sold via the online Russian marketplace Avito.
Everything from packets of pepper ($4.71), to a McDonald’s glass ($47) to an open container of Big Tasty sauce ($94) can be found, with items listed under both the “food” and “collecting” categories.
One seller listed a Big Mac sandwich “purchased in early autumn 2021” and “stored in a cool room since” for $470. “[It] didn’t touch my hands at all,” according to the seller, who listed the sandwich as “new.”
“Hurry up to buy your last burger,” wrote another person who had stockpiled 45 hamburgers and was selling them at (a far more reasonable) $4.71 each.
Another seller was offering just the packaging of a McDonald’s Happy Meal, along with the children’s toy, for $80.
According to the Economist’s Big Mac index, which looks at currency strength by comparing the price of the popular McDonald’s menu item in countries around the world, the Russian Big Mac in normal times cost about 135 rubles, or just under $2.
On March 8, McDonald’s announced it would be closing 850 restaurants in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The company said in a statement that it would continue to pay its 62,000 Russian employees but could not “ignore the needless human suffering unfolding in Ukraine.”
McDonald’s, unlike other fast food behemoths KFC, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Subway, hasn’t franchised the majority of its Russian locations and still owns 84% of the restaurants.
