Big Mac comes to the heart of Siberia

Now the world's largest food chain has received its long-awaited permission to open its first five outlets in Novosibirsk. 

The restaurants in Siberia's unofficial capital will have seating for 50 diners. 

All will open this year and another five fast food outlets are expected during 2013, said reports on Monday. 

McDonalds opened its first Russian restaurant on 31 January 1990, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and set a world record by serving 30,000 on day one. The chain now has some 324 outlets in Russia, but none in Siberia or the Russian Far East, say media reports.

Well, not quite. 

There is one on the western edge of Siberia in Tyumen but the opening in Novosibirsk in a major leap east in McDonald's conquest of its final frontier.

McDonald's also has plans to open in Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, Barnaul and Novokuznetsk.