César Chelala is the global health consultant and a contributing editor for The Globalist.

I'm sitting at a McDonald's, drinking cappuccino and eating a croissant with a spectacular view of one of the most famous monasteries in the city, if not the country.

This situation would not be unusual except that it takes place in St. Petersburg, and the monastery is not a common one. It is the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, named in honor of the most important and admired hero in Russian history.

Nor is it common that the two countries' icons, McDonald's and the Nevsky Monastery, are facing each other. In the monastery are buried prestigious Russian writers, musicians and artists. The croissant I am eating is a French culinary icon. The cashier at the McDonald's doesn't look Russian, but rather looks as if she is a native of one of the former Soviet republics.

This scene is just one more example of the scope of globalization and how it affects the world today...