The hole story: Russians line up for Krispy Kreme doughnuts

Customers appear 22 hours before first store opens in Moscow

Moscow — Here on Nikolskaya Street, in the shadow of the Kremlin, Russia’s first book wasprintedin1564, itsfirstcollege was opened in 1685 and its first newspaper was published in 1703. The Krispy Kreme doughnut arrived Thursday.

The line for doughnuts began forming at 11 a. m. Wednesday, 22 hours before the historic moment when Krispy Kreme opened for business in Russia. By 9 a.m. Thursday, 200 people were waiting. First inside would win doughnuts for a year.

“They put something in it,” Susanna Agababyan, 21, mused, wondering why she so savored the doughnut she had just eaten. “I had the original. It’s really tasty.”

Agababyan, a translator of Italian, had a box with a dozen doughnutsinherlap. Shesatat an outdoor table with a friend, MikhailKiselyov, a22-year-old accounting student. “Today I tasted this for the first time,” Kiselyov said, “and I decided maybe it was worth it.”

That would be chocolate with sprinkles.

“We were thinking of standing in line,” he said, “but we decided against it.”

They had arrived Thursday evening, when the crowd had died down, but even at 7 p.m. about 25 people stood on the sidewalk awaiting entry and a glimpse at the doughnut theater, where originals rolled steadily along on a conveyor belt behind a glass window. Agababyan’s dozen would be taken home to her sister.

Nikolskaya lies in the heart of 866-year-old Moscow. The dreaded Lubyanka, home of the security police, looms above one end of the street. At the other end lies the imposing Kremlin, where dark theories regularly emerge about the United States and its eagerness to interfere in Russian affairs. Thursday, in an opinion article published in the New York Times, President Vladimir Putin scolded the United States for considering itself exceptional. Off in America, President Obama was being criticized by some for handling Russia badly.

Has no one told them that here in Great Russia American calories rule? A Subway sandwich shop operates at the other end of lovely old Nikolskaya Street, which also has a Beverly Hills Diner tucked in among expensive Italian clothing stores and elegant restaurants. A nearby McDonald’s dishes out one Big Mac after another to an unending stream of customers. Dunkin’ Donuts dot the city.

“Russians are not opposed to what America produces,” Agababyan said.

The Krispy Kreme store was brought here by Arkady Novikov, a Russian restaurant magnate who specializes in expensive, buzz-provoking restaurants. He expects a customer to pay $30 for a plate of risotto, and be grateful for the opportunity. ( An original Krispy Kreme was about $ 1.55 or $ 1.60 Thursday as the exchange rate jumped around. )