A Russian Sushi Chain Features An Ad With A Black Man. A Racist Backlash Ensues. 30 August 2021

The online ad bouncing around the Russian Internet earlier this month was for a sushi chain with growing popularity, opening dozens restaurants across Russia: four smiling young people wielding chopsticks as they dig into noodles and seaweed bowls and grab at a plate of gigantic sushi and maki rolls.

Three of the people were women, apparently Russian. One was a black man.

Conservative activists immediately unleashed a campaign of hateful, racist attacks on social media and elsewhere, accusing the owner of spreading the "propaganda of multiculturalism."

Now the owner of the chain, originally launched in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, is apologizing publicly -- and in doing so, has added new fuel to a social debate within Russia about progressive commercials in business marketing...

In a column on the business site VC.ru, Konstantin Zimyen, the founder of the chain Yobidoyobi, said his staff had been barraged with hateful comments for the ad and another one, which featured the black man posing alone.

Zimyen said some posters [on Russian social network VK] threatened him with violence, and also published his personal phone number online....

But on its page on VK, the company phrased its apology in starker terms, specifically appealing to ethnic Russians who may have been offended by the images...

This is not the first such case in recent weeks, as an increasing number of Russian companies come under pressure to toe the nationalist line.

In July, a health-food chain called VkusVill withdrew a commercial featuring an LGBT couple and apologized to its customers for what it called "a mistake that exposed the unprofessionalism of some employees."...