For almost 20 years now, a photograph has been circulating on the Internet, which supposedly shows how in 2005 a Latvian woman gave the US President a T-shirt with his portrait and an English phrase consonant with a Russian curse. We checked whether this actually happened.

The story was most vividly described by a man under the nickname Watcher, sent letter to the editor now closed newspaper “Duel”* (No. 51 (449), December 20, 2005): “There are still a lot of patriots in Latvia, as evidenced by the recent visit to this Baltic republic of US President George W. Bush. They received him as the most dear guest... Well, the apotheosis of people's love for the American president was supposed to be meetings with ordinary Latvian citizens. The meetings were a great success. Some unknown heroine of the Latvian resistance presented dear George a T-shirt with his portrait and a loyal inscription in English: “Welcome peace duke!” Outwardly, everything looked very decent, and Bush must have been moved to see such a sincere manifestation of the friendly feelings of the Latvian people. He has probably never been greeted anywhere as the “Duke of Peace” - this is exactly how the inscription on the T-shirt is translated. However, anyone who speaks Russian and can at least read a few words in English could not help but notice the deepest meaning invested by the Latvian patriot in this short greeting phrase: “Welcome, pis duk!” P.S. Some people believe that there can be no talk of any patriotic act. Like, everything is explained by the narrow-mindedness and thoughtlessness of the aforementioned Latvian young lady. However, we completely disagree with this and indignantly reject even hints of thoughtlessness. The Latvian patriots did a great job. You are walking the right path, comrades!”

For 18 years, a photo of Bush Jr. with a T-shirt has traveled many platforms: in 2005, it was published by LiveJournal users (here, here And here), in 2011 - on the website "Big question", in 2014 - to "I cried", in 2016 - in Twitter, in 2017 - to Fishki.net, in 2019 - to "Peekaboo", in 2020 - to "Mail.ru replies"and in 2023 - to Reddit, as well as on other sites (here, here, here And here).

Page of the newspaper "Duel". Photo: G.A.I. (Meshok)

George W. Bush was not the first politician to receive the pun phrase peace duke as a nickname. translated as “duke of peace” and is consonant with Russian swearing. Countswhat is it appeared back at the end of the 20th century - this is how the President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev was called in a joke. From time to time, consonance is remembered in order to use it for political purposes. One of these cases occurred quite recently - in May 2023. Then there were reports that allegedly in the very center of New York, on one of the media facades in Times Square, an advertisement was shown with the phrase “Zelensky is peace duke” - “Verified” dismantled viral video and determined that it was a fake.

As for Bush, in 2005 he really committed visit to Latvia during his second presidential term - politician stayed in Riga from May 6 to 7. His trip to Europe was timed to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, and one of the stops was Moscow, where Bush was present at the parade in honor of Victory Day.

Although in his speech in Riga Bush thanked the people of the Republic of Latvia for the warm welcome, not all residents of the country were friendly. Thus, the initiative group “I am for peace” called for Riga residents met the American president with a peaceful protest: it was proposed to paste posters condemning the war in Iraq, specially prepared for the visit, onto advertising stands, house windows and cafe windows in the city center. One of the posters featured a peace sign with the caption “Imagine, George!” (“Imagine, George!”, which refers to the John Lennon song Imagine). Another poster shows an Iraqi prisoner under torture and Bush's mother saying: "...but, George! Did I teach you that?” (“…but George! Did I teach you this?”). And finally, there were posters with images of the president himself and the inscription “Welcome peace duke!” - one of them completely repeats the picture from the T-shirt in the photo we are interested in.

Photos of posters hung on the streets of Riga and photographed on the eve of Bush's arrival in May 2005 can be found on the websites of various photo agencies - for example, the American Getty Images or British Alamy.

Google page screenshots. Photo: collage “Verified” / Alamy / Getty Images

Despite the fact that a protest action was actually held in Riga, the original viral photo of Bush is in no way connected with it. The original version of the image was discovered by “Verified” using reverse search from the picture, and it turned out that it was not made in Latvia and not in 2005. The photograph shows the American president with Olympia Jean Snow, senator from Maine. There was a photo on the US Senate website posted with the caption: "October 22, 2002 - Senator Olympia Snowe and George W. Bush proudly display a Moxie T-shirt during the President's visit to the city Bangor"

We were unable to find the original source of the edited version of the photo. However, on almost all the resources that shared it, which “Verified” studied, the fake photo was posted with the watermark of the site fotki.lv, and in the pictures without this logo it is noticeable that it was carelessly smeared over. Thus, most likely, the portrait of Bush and the phrase “Welcome peace duke!” added to the T-shirt 18 years ago by one of the fotki.lv users.