Is it true that in the zoo in Texas you can take a paid photo with a monkey named Zelensky?

Telegram reports that in one of the American private zoos for $ 5, you can take a picture with Makaki nicknamed Zelensky, dressed in recognizable clothes. Two pictures are given as evidence. We checked their reliability.

The first publications about the unusual service in the zoo in Texas appeared on February 10, 2023. It is reported that the owner of the park decided, as if Zelensky - a suitable name for the monkey, and dressed up the animal in the clothes of Khaki with the coat of arms of Ukraine. Publications accompany two photographs: on one Macau-Rezus itself, and the other shows a sign where its name, age (four years), weight (15 pounds, or 6.8 kg) are listed, as well as the cost of one photo ($ 4.9). “Perhaps, in the eyes of Western politicians, Zelensky looks like that, but it just costs more.” Add The authors of some posts.

News about this action appeared in the TV presenter Telegram channels Ruslan Ostashko (132,000 views at the time of writing this text), "Observer"(237 000), Voblya (193 000), "Scott Ritter in Telegram"(190 000),"Sheikh Tamir"(184 000),"Uncle Glory"(123,000), Fox News Russia (122,000), "Kostyan Cat - Official Channel"(117 000), Putin TG Team (89,000), "Bullet 18+"(84,000),"The first patriotic"(77 000),"What is going on?"(67 000),"War History of Weapons"(52,000) and"Shaman Rahu"(2300). Posts about the service in the Texas zoo diverged in other social networks, including VKontakte (examples here, here And here) and twitter (here, here And here).

If such a service exists somewhere in Texas, then, apparently, it is not in demand. Firstly, not a single photo of a person with a monkey, where it would be signed that the animal was called Zelensky, did not find “verified” in social networks. There is no mention of the action in any English -speaking media. In social networks, all the posts we found about this paid service in English are published later by similar records in Russian. In addition, the name of a particular zoo is not indicated in any of the publications we have found, but it is impossible to determine the location in which a photograph of a plate is made due to the lack of any noteworthy details on it.

As for the picture, which depicts the macaque in a greenish sweatshirt with the Ukrainian emblem, the photo was changed in a graphic editor. Thanks to the opposite search In the picture, we determined that in fact the animal was dressed in a blue jacket (the blue contour and part of the blue hood even remained in the viral image). Probably, for the difficulty of searching, the authors of fake mirror the photo, as well as distorted the background and proportions of the body of the monkey.

There was a real picture published On the Pinterest website September 22, 2020 in the account of a woman named Tatyana. In addition, in the left side of the photo that has become the basis for the viral fake, you can notice part of the plate where in Russian they ask to observe order and not to breed bonfires. The same profile has collection under the name "Clothing for Monkeys", consisting of 18 pictures. On One Of these, you can see the logo and the name of the eco -resort "Maryin Island", Located in the Republic of Altai.

In an interview with “verified” Tatyana said that the original picture was taken in the summer of 2020 in the village of Chemal in Altai. In the photo, a monkey named Slavik, who at the time of shooting was three and a half years, and his weight was about 4 kg. In addition, Tatyana provided a photo of the animal from another angle.

The earliest publication we discovered about paid photography with macaque named Zelensky appeared In the Telegram channel "Rita Ebzeeva" (49,000 views) on February 10, 2023 at 17:04 Moscow time. Earlier in this channel, fake photos related to other invented shares and announcements were distributed. For example, "verified" wrote about the Estonian refuelingwhere motorists with Russian numbers were allegedly forbidden to buy more than 10 liters of gasoline, and about Ukrainian Tattoo studiowho, according to the action, supposedly reduces the swastika at half -price. 

Thus, there is no evidence of the existence in the Texas zoo of paid services for photographing with a monkey named Zelensky, and the only photo used as evidence that originally appeared in the Russian -language publication was edited.

Photo on the cover: social networks

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Is it true that an announcement appeared in the Berlin zoo with a request “not to feed the leopards with empty conversations of Zelensky”?
2. Is it true that graffiti with Zelensky in the image of locusts appeared in Madrid and New York?
3. Is it true that the American television channel accidentally showed Zelensky’s speech instead of a funny video with a dog?