Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 16, 1990                   TAG: 9006180184
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ELAINE VIEL SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

BURGERS ACROSS THE SEA

The carton contained some items near and dear to the hearts of most elementary children: about 30 boxes of McDonald's cookies, calendars and coupons that entitled the bearer to one free hamburger and a drink.

The cookies and calendars looked pretty much the same as usual, but the coupons were a whole lot different - they were in Russian.

The Gilbert Linkous kids had wanted to share a bit of the United States with their pen pals in Pavaroska, which Maria Rossi, mother and instigator of the great McDonald's burger exchange, describes as a "small town due south of Moscow."

So with the help of Mike Grimm, who owns the Blacksburg McDonald's franchise, among others, the "McBox" from Blacksburg left for the Soviet Union sometime in January.

Since then, Rossi and the pupils have been waiting eagerly for a reply.

Rossi was worried the box would never arrive in Pavaroska, or that sticky fingers along the way might help themselves to a few of the McGoodies.

But on May "19 or 20" Rossi said she heard that the box had made it halfway around the world, that the box was duly opened amid squeals of delight and that hamburgers were eaten and enjoyed.

Rossi had been expecting a letter, but she got something better.

Alex Petoby, the father of one of the Soviet children, called her from Washington to let her know things had arrived and tell her that all was well.

"I had kind of lost hope," Rossi said. "Mail there has not been going through or has been so slow."

According to Petoby, an all-day field trip to Moscow was organized when the coupons arrived, Rossi said. The children spent half a day at Puskin's Museum and the other half standing in line at the Moscow McDonald's.

One child wrote, in his thank-you letter to his pen pal in Blacksburg, that they stood in line for about 2 1/2 to three hours.

Petoby mailed the letters and mementoes from the children in Pavaroska from Washington.

Rossi said that one little boy wrote to his pen pal that his grandmother makes hamburgers for him, but that they are not nearly as good as the ones at McDonald's.