In August 2025, news went viral on social networks that in the city of Girdwood, where a meeting of the presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States would supposedly take place, one of the establishments had recently been serving an exclusive dish - a local interpretation of the Canadian potato poutine. We have verified the veracity of such publications.
August 12 "Radio Sputnik” in its Telegram channel (11,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) reported: “Girdwood is preparing for a meeting between [Donald] Trump and [Vladimir] Putin. In one of the bars in a town in Alaska, where, according to rumors, a meeting between the leaders of the United States and Russia could take place, they came up with “Mr. Putin’s exclusive dish.” It's actually a Canadian hit - poutine (fries with gravy and cheese) with a local twist." Two photographs were attached to the publication: one of them shows a bucket of potatoes with the inscription poutine, the other shows a board in a certain establishment with the name of the supposed dish Exclusive Mr. Putin's Russian Poutine is priced at $2.95 and features Trump and Putin shaking hands.
According to the TGStat service, in less than 24 hours, more than 110 similar Russian-language posts appeared on Telegram, which in total received almost 600,000 views. Channels wrote about the dish “Russian Putin”Uncle Slava"(109,000 views), "Banksta"(86,000), "Federation"(36,000), "Banks, money, two offshores"(34,000, post deleted), Full-Time Trading (33,000), Maisto (33,000), "Actually in Kharkov"(26,000), "Investor's office"(22,000), etc. Photos are found in Instagram and social network X, where you can find Russian-language tweets (examples here And here), and posts in English (here, here And here) And German languages. The pictures were also published on news And entertaining websites.
Trump announced meeting with Putin after negotiations President of Russia with the special envoy of the American leader Steve Witkoff, which took place on August 6 in the Kremlin. Summit planned on August 15th. It is known that it will be held in the American state of Alaska, but the exact location at the time of writing this analysis not named. Different versions appeared in the media, among them, indeed, called Girdwood.
The earliest publication with a viral image, which was tracked by “Verified”, appeared on August 11 at 15:47 Moscow time in the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel “Shaman Rahu"(4900 views). Over the next 14 minutes, similar publications appeared in the channels "Kryminforum 🇿 🇴 🇻"(13,000 views), "Urgent and accurate" (2000) and "Bear"(6200). These four resource were mentioned in dozens of our analyses, often as primary sources of fakes.
None of these publications or those mentioned at the beginning of this analysis indicate the name of the establishment where the viral photos were allegedly taken. “Verified” studied the distributed picture of the board and noticed a logo on it with the mention Lake Inguadona, located in Minnesota. The words are also visible on the emblem Anchorage Inn - this is the name of the hotel with a bar-restaurant, located on the banks of Inguadona, 6 km east of the city of Longueville.
On the official website establishments there is no mention of a dish in honor of Putin. However, other pictures that first appeared in the Rahu Shaman channel and turned out to be fake were often created based on photos from Google Maps and screenshots from Google Street View. "Verified" examined the Anchorage Inn page on Google Maps, and in the photo section we found snapshot, a fragment of which is almost identical to the viral one. The original photo was published back in March 2025, and in it, on the board, it was not Russian poutine that was mentioned, but other dishes.
As for the second photo being circulated, which shows a bucket of potatoes with topping, it is not new either. For example, this image was used in article 2015, dedicated to the best street food from around the world. Moreover, judging by the design of the bucket, this poutine was prepared in New York Fries is a Canadian fast food restaurant chain that does not have any branches in Alaska.
Thus, on the eve of the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska, the local bar did not start selling the dish poutine, playing off its consonance with the name of the Russian president. The news about this is based on a photo fake. Apparently, the authors of the fake were looking for pictures taken in Anchorage - the largest city in Alaska, but they accidentally took a photo from a hotel of the same name in Minnesota.
This is not the first such falsification. For example, at the beginning of 2024, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels reported, as if an Italian bar was selling beer at a 50% discount in honor of Putin's address to the Federal Assembly. Then the news was accompanied by a fabricated video. And in 2023 in Runet distributed a fake screenshot of the Canadian newspaper La Presse - it allegedly wrote that, on the contrary, they want to rename the national dish poutine, because due to the consonance of its name with the name of the President of the Russian Federation, restaurant owners are receiving threats.
Cover photo: social networks
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