A photo of a tattoo parlour claimed on social media to be taken in Ukraine has been digitally altered to suggest the business is offering a half price promotion for removing swastika tattoos. A reverse image search found the tattoo parlour is in Russia, has a different name and does not display such an advertisement.
The edited image shows a sign on a building for a parlour called “Tattoo Master” and displays an additional promotion that reads in misspelled Ukrainian: “Going to Europe? We will remove your swastika at half price”.
Facebook and Twitter users have shared the image and claimed it shows an authentic sign in Ukraine. “I did predict that tattoo removal would become a good business in the Ukraine,” said one user (here ).
Other iterations can be found (here ) and (here ).
However, a reverse image shows the photo has been edited. A high-quality and uncropped version of the same photo can be seen (here ).
The name of the parlour is “TATOOIROGRAF”, and the uncropped version shows the street address, “Sovetskaya street 52-1”, visible at the top.
Reuters traced the location to the Tatooirograf parlour in Biysk, a city in Russia. A VKontakte page for the studio uses the same logo as the one in the original image (here ).
Reuters geolocated the photo of the tattoo parlour using Google Maps and file images, confirming its location (here!4m5!3m4!1s0x42c4ac0da3f02045:0x4cbe3f28be0c458a!8m2!3d52.5392795!4d85.2196803?hl=en ).
While the additional promotion text displayed on the edited image is in Ukrainian, “half price” is misspelled and the word “Акция” (Promotion) is Russian.
VERDICT
False. Photo shared alongside claim has been digitally altered and the tattoo parlour is in Russia, not Ukraine.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.