When Colonel Sanders Invades Your Country

A few days ago, when I was wandering through Bishkek, I found myself near the new shopping center that I heard would be housing a highly-anticipated new phenomenon: Kyrgyzstan’s first KFC. One of the features I appreciate most about Kyrgyzstan is its dearth of enormous fast food chains. When I arrived in Kyrgyzstan last year, there was not a single U.S.-based franchise in the country. One week later, Nathan’s Hot Dogs opened its first outlet, but they are such a small player on the franchise scene that their arrival didn’t bother me. Too much.

But, this is different; KFC is a mammoth operation sprawling across the globe and its entry into the Kyrgyz market just might be a game changer. When I arrived at the new KFC, stern countenance of the Colonel glowering down from various vantage points around the shopping center, I was astonished to find a mob of almost a hundred people lined up waiting to enter the store—at 4 p.m. in the afternoon. There was a security guard monitoring the entrance, making sure only a few people could enter at a time so that the KFC wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the crowd clamoring for the best fried chicken the state of Kentucky supposedly has to offer.

I had contemplated trying a thigh of the Colonel’s Original Recipe of secret herbs and spices and a small bucket of mashed potatoes the consistency of school glue, with brown gravy possessing the faint flavor of black pepper and instant coffee. However, a two-hour wait to savor such gourmet treats seemed slightly excessive to me and I wandered away to engage in more productive tasks. Still, I was troubled. Why were so many people so extraordinarily eager to dine with the Colonel? It’s not the food. It’s somehow the marketing. The Colonel and his loyal band of majors and lieutenants must know that they are selling the promise of the West and what it seems to offer those enchanted by the myths of faraway lands.

Clearly the Kyrgyz standing in line at the Bishkek KFC, don’t know KFC like I know KFC. When the novelty of the Colonel wears away, sometimes little remains. I say that because I vividly remember the KFC in the small Arkansas town in which I once lived. It was an elderly, bedraggled, poorly-maintained place. I only visited it a couple of times, so appalling was the service one would receive there. My order never was filled correctly—sometimes even the second or third time. The restrooms appeared to be seldom tended. The buffet: a dismal assortment of dried and mushy relics whose expiration dates seemed to have corresponded with the dates chronicled in the history books of the local school children. There were not a hundred people standing in line to enter that KFC, but rather a line of three or four unsuspecting travelers from the interstate hoping to flee the store, if only their orders would ever get filled. I wonder if the Kyrygz KFC customers know what they will be getting down the road?

So begins the slow, yet gradual, process of the erosion of local foodways and Kyrgyz ways of living. How amazing it is that it’s something for which everyone is standing in line and paying money gladly.

KFC Bishkek

Waiting in line for that "Finger Lickin' Good" Chicken