MOSCOW: A Russian marketing agency has offered to help restaurants in cities hosting the football World Cup use fake reviews to bump up ratings on review site TripAdviser, the agency’s owner has confirmed.
Marketing company Bacon Agency says it can circumvent TripAdviser’s algorithm for detecting fraudulent posts and publish reviews in foreign languages ahead of an influx of fans from abroad.
“What can you do if no Serbs and no Swedes have ever been to your venue and left a review?” Bacon Agency asks, in a brochure received by a restaurant in Yekaterinburg, which hosts Egypt and Uruguay in their first-round matches.
“You write it yourself!” the agency says.
For 35,000 roubles ($570), the agency promises a spot in TripAdviser’s top 10 list. “We are offering to help tourists find you, and to leave their money specifically with you,” it writes.
“We oppose any attempt to manipulate a business’ ranking,” TripAdviser said. “Our dedicated investigations team is proactive and extremely effective at catching those trying to solicit fake reviews for money.”
Fake reviews are widespread, but it is unusual for a company involved in the practice to discuss it so openly, or to link it explicitly to a sports event.
The World Cup has created lucrative opportunities for businesses in the 12 host cities hoping to benefit from well-to-do foreign fans at a time when Russians are feeling the pinch from a fragile economy and Western sanctions.
Contacted by Reuters, Bacon Agency confirmed it had offered the service, but said it only wanted to act as the middleman between restaurants and freelancers posting fake reviews.
“We understand that all this is illegal in the sense that TripAdviser is against it,” said Bacon Agency’s owner Roman Baldanov.
“We were just testing this niche, because we see high demand. It’s not because we’re bad guys who came in and said, look, you’ve got to start swindling ... All restaurants know that reviews are ordered, and many use this service,” Baldanov said.
He said nobody had yet taken up his offer. “The response we got was: thanks, but we are already doing this ourselves.”
Reuters tracked restaurants in six World Cup host cities over two months, noting an uptick in suspicious-looking posts.
An event like the World Cup increases incentives to post such reviews, said Stanford University’s Jeff Hancock, an expert in detecting fake reviews.
“Any time you start seeing reviews come in all at once, look sort of similar, have the same kind of language, then alarm bells should start going off,” Hancock said.
At least six restaurants in the TripAdviser top 30 list for Kaliningrad, which will host Croatia and Nigeria, appeared to fit this description.
Peperonchino, a cafe serving Italian cuisine 20 minutes’ drive from the World Cup stadium, used to get around one review a week.
But two weeks ago, reviews began to flood in — 45 in total — the majority from accounts with stock photos, created this year, and rating the cafe five stars. Peperonchino rose from 28th place to 2nd on TripAdviser’s list.
Sister cafe Peperonchino 2 also received a flood of reviews in the past fortnight, also 45 in total, 32 from such accounts.
“All our reviews are real and are left by our customers,” Peperonchino said. “It’s just we have a big loyalty system, a mobile phone app, and so on.”
In a strategy document seen by Reuters, Bacon Agency explains how to avoid detection by TripAdviser.
“The issue is that TripAdviser has developed algorithms which monitor user activity and when they spot an attempt to manipulate the numbers, they sanction the venue,” the agency writes.
To trick the algorithm, fake reviews are published using different IP addresses, devices, browsers and operating systems. Each account has a “back story” of earlier posts.
The reviews will be “full of real details about the menu and decor, as well as ‘real’ photographs, which we will ask you to take.”
Russian agency offers fake restaurant reviews ahead of World Cup
Russian agency offers fake restaurant reviews ahead of World Cup

Couples tie the knot during a festival on an Amsterdam ring road

- “It just seemed like super fun idea,” Lisowska said
- “It’s a nice party we didn’t have to organize,” said Iozzelli
AMSTERDAM: Securing a coveted slot to exchange wedding rings on Amsterdam’s usually traffic-choked ring road seemed like a good omen for Zuzanna Lisowska and Yuri Iozzelli’s future life together.
“It just seemed like super fun idea,” Lisowska said. “And, you know, statistics were on our side. There were 400 couples who wanted to do it, so we feel really lucky to have been chosen.”
Friends and total strangers cheered and clapped as they told each other “I do!” as part of a day-long festival on parts of the A10 highway that circles the Dutch capital closed to traffic for the day.
“It’s a nice party we didn’t have to organize,” said Iozzelli.
Their only regret was not being able to bring their pet rabbit. “It was too hot,” Lisowska said after exchanging rings with Iozzelli.
The city that is known for partying said that some 600,000 people tried to get access to the ring road festival last month when more than 200,000 free tickets were made available.
Curious city folk, from parents pushing strollers to students and grandparents, stopped to watch the weddings and enjoyed the one-off opportunity to see the road without the usual cacophony of cars.
Among them was communications student Kyra Smit.
“It’s really fun because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” she said. “It’s so fun that you can say to people, wow, I’m married on the rings, so I really like this.”
The day was packed with events from music performances to readings, meetups and a fun run, shortened because of the heat. Organizers even placed a temporary forest of more than 8,000 trees on the blacktop.
The municipality laid on extra water taps and places where revellers could slap on sun block as temperatures soared to 30 degrees Celsius (86F) and upwards on the road surface.
The city’s official birthday is Oct. 27, reflecting the first time a variant of its name was used in an official document, and is staging celebratory events in the year leading up to that date. The festival on the ring road is the biggest so far and gave Amsterdam residents a new view of their ring road.
“It’s quite strange because normally you drive here and now you’re walking, so that’s a totally different situation,” said Marjolein de Bruijne, who works close to the A10.
Indians stretch, breathe and balance to mark International Day of Yoga

- Yoga is one of India’s most successful cultural exports after Bollywood
NEW DELHI: Tens of thousands of people across India stretched in public parks and on sandy beaches Saturday to mark the 11th International Day of Yoga.
The mass yoga sessions were held in many Indian states, where crowds attempted various poses and practiced breathing exercises. Indian military personnel also performed yoga in the icy heights of Siachen Glacier in the Himalayas and on naval ships anchored in the Bay of Bengal.
Similar sessions were planned in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia.
“I feel that yoga keeps us spiritually fit, mentally fit and helps us manage stress. That’s why I feel that people should take out at least 30 minutes every day for yoga to keep themselves fit,” said Rajiv Ranjan, who participated in an event in the Indian capital of New Delhi.
Yoga is one of India’s most successful cultural exports after Bollywood. It has also been enlisted for diplomacy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has harnessed it for cultural soft power as the country takes on a larger role in world affairs.
Modi persuaded the UN to designate the annual International Day of Yoga in 2014. The theme this year was “Yoga for One Earth, One Health.”
Modi performed yoga among a seaside crowd in the southern city of Visakhapatnam city, and said “Yoga leads us on a journey toward oneness with world.” Amid a checkerboard of yoga mats covering the beach, Modi took his spot on a mat and did breathing exercises, backbends and other poses.
“Let this Yoga Day mark the beginning of Yoga for humanity 2.0, where inner peace becomes global policy,” he said.
As Modi has pushed yoga, ministers, government officials and Indian military personnel have gone on social media to show themselves folding in different poses.
In capital New Delhi, scores of people from all walks of life and age groups gathered at the sprawling Lodhi Gardens, following an instructor on stage.
“Yoga for me is like balancing between inner world and outer world,” said Siddharth Maheshwari, a startup manager who joined the event.
Netherlands returns 119 looted artifacts known as Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

ABUJA, Nigeria: The Netherlands on Thursday returned 119 artifacts looted from Nigeria, including human and animal figures, plaques, royal regalia and a bell.
The artifacts, known as the Benin Bronzes and mostly housed in a museum in the city of Leiden, were looted in the late 19th century by British soldiers.
In recent years, museums across Europe and North America have moved to address ownership disputes over artifacts looted during the colonial era. They were returned at the request of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
During the handover ceremony in Edo State, Oba Ewuare II, the monarch and custodian of Benin culture, described the return of the artifacts as a “divine intervention.” The Benin Bronzes were returned at the request of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments.
The restitution is a testament to the power of prayer and determination, the monarch said.
The Dutch government is committed to returning artifacts that do not belong to the country, said Marieke Van Bommel, director of the Wereld Museum.
Olugbile Holloway, the commission’s director, said the return of 119 artifacts marks the largest single repatriation to date and that his organization is working hard to recover more items looted during colonial times.
Nigeria formally requested the return of hundreds of objects from museums around the world in 2022. Some 72 objects were returned from a London museum that year while 31 were returned from a museum in Rhode Island.
The Benin Bronzes were stolen in 1897 when British forces under the command of Sir Henry Rawson sacked the Benin kingdom and forced Ovonramwen Nogbaisi, the monarch at the time, into a six-month exile. Benin is located in modern-day southern Nigeria.
Napoleon’s iconic bicorne hat and personal treasures expected to fetch millions in Paris

PARIS: After Hollywood’s “Napoleon” exposed the legendary emperor to a new generation, over 100 relics — which shaped empires, broke hearts and spawned centuries of fascination — are on display in Paris ahead of what experts call one of the most important Napoleonic auctions ever staged.
His battered military hat. A sleeve from his red velvet coat. Even the divorce papers that ended one of history’s most tormented romances — with Josephine, the empress who haunted him to the end.
Two centuries after his downfall, Napoleon remains both revered and controversial in France — but above all, unavoidable. Polls have shown that many admire his vision and achievements, while others condemn his wars and authoritarian rule. Nearly all agree his legacy still shapes the nation.
“These are not just museum pieces. They’re fragments of a life that changed history,” said Louis-Xavier Joseph, Sotheby’s head of European furniture, who helped assemble the trove. “You can literally hold a piece of Napoleon’s world in your hand.”
From battlefields to boudoirs
The auction — aiming to make in excess of 7 million euros — is a biography in objects. The centerpiece is Napoleon’s iconic bicorne hat, the black felt chapeau he wore in battle — with wings parallel to his shoulders — so soldiers and enemies could spot him instantly through the gunpowder haze.
“Put a bicorne on a table, and people think of Napoleon immediately,” Joseph said. “It’s like the laurel crown of Julius Caesar.”
The hat is estimated to sell for at least over half a million dollars.
For all the pageantry — throne, swords, the Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honor — the auction’s true power comes from its intimacy. It includes the handwritten codicil of Napoleon’s final will, composed in paranoia and illness on Saint Helena.
There is the heartbreakingly personal: the red portfolio that once contained his divorce decree from Josephine, the religious marriage certificate that formalized their love and a dressing table designed for the empress. Her famed mirror reflects the ambition and tragedy of their alliance.
“Napoleon was a great lover; his letters that he wrote are full of fervor, of love, of passion,” Joseph said. “It was also a man who paid attention to his image. Maybe one of the first to be so careful of his image, both public and private.”
A new generation of exposure
The auction’s timing is cinematic. The 2023 biopic grossed over $220 million worldwide and reanimated Napoleon’s myth for a TikTok generation hungry for stories of ambition, downfall and doomed romance.
The auction preview is open to the public, running through June 24, with the auction set for June 25.
Not far from the Arc de Triomphe monument dedicated to the general’s victories, Djamal Oussedik, 22, shrugged: “Everyone grows up with Napoleon, for better or worse. Some people admire him, others blame him for everything. But to see his hat and his bed, you remember he was a real man, not just a legend.”
“You can’t escape him, even if you wanted to. He’s part of being French,” said teacher Laure Mallet, 51.
History as spectacle
The exhibition is a spectacle crafted by celebrity designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, famed for dressing Lady Gaga and Pope John Paul II.
“I wanted to electrify history,” Castelbajac said. “This isn’t a mausoleum, it’s a pop culture installation. Today’s collectors buy a Napoleon artifact the way they’d buy a guitar from Jimi Hendrix. They want a cabinet of curiosities.”
He’s filled the show with fog, hypnotic music and immersive rooms. One is inspired by the camouflage colors of Fontainebleau. Another is anchored by Napoleon’s legendary folding bed. “I create the fog in the entrance of the Sotheby’s building because the elements of nature were an accomplice to Napoleon’s strategy,” the designer said.
Castelbajac, who said his ancestor fought in Napoleon’s Russian campaign, brought a personal touch. “I covered the emperor’s bed in original canvas. You can feel he was just alone, facing all he had built. There’s a ghostly presence.”
He even created something Napoleon only dreamed of. “Napoleon always wanted a green flag instead of the blue, white, red tricolore of the revolution,” he said, smiling. “He never got one. So I made it for Sotheby’s.”
Trump shows off giant new flagpoles, boasts of them as ‘the largest you’ll ever see’

- At 27 meters tall, the flagpoles are nowhere close to the world’s tallest, including one from Jeddah
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump took time out Wednesday from deliberating on whether to bomb Iran to unveil two huge new flagpoles that he claimed are among the best in the world.
Trump, 79, saluted as a giant Stars and Stripes flag was raised on one of the 88-foot (27-meter) poles in a brief ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House.
The billionaire real estate tycoon, who built his career on brash displays of wealth, said he was personally paying for each of the $50,000 poles.
And he could not resist some nationalistic hyperbole about the size and quality of the new additions.
“This is about the largest you’ll ever see,” Trump told reporters. “These are the best poles anywhere in the country — in the world actually.”eeeeee
The poles are, however, 12 feet shorter than originally advertised by the White House, which said when it announced Trump’s plan in April that they would be 100 feet tall.
They are also nowhere close to the world's tallest flagpoles, including Saudi Arabia's (561-feet (171-meter) high Jeddah Flagpole, which was completed in September 2014, this was previously the world record holder for several years.
Trump also said the pole on the South Lawn — the famed expanse of grass with a vista that leads to the Jefferson Memorial — was “very far” from where Marine One lands, when asked if it could cause any issues for the helicopter.
WORLD'S TALLEST FLAGPOLES
1. Egypt's Cairo flagpole (New Administrative Capital, Cairo: 201.952 meters (662.57 feet) - completed in December 2021.
2. Azerbaijan's National Flag Square flagpole 2 (Baku, Azerbaijan): 191 meters (626.64 feet) unveiled in August 2024.
3. Saint Petersburg Flagpoles (Saint Petersburg, Russia): 175 meters (574 feet) - unveiled in June 2023.
4. Jeddah Flagpole (King Abdullah Square, Jeddah): 171 meters (561 feet) - completed in September 2014.
5. Dushanbe Flagpole (Dushanbe, Tajikistan): 165 meters (541 feet) - completed in May 2011. 6. Kijong-dong Flagpole (Kijong-dong, North Korea): 160 meters (525 feet) - Built in 1982, this flagpole held the record for the tallest for many years.
( Source: Google Gemini compilation)
The second flagpole was being installed on the North Lawn at the front of the White House.
The giant flags are the latest part of Trump’s sweeping makeover of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since he returned to power in January.
The Republican is paving over the famed Rose Garden and has blitzed the Oval Office with gaudy gold decorations. He also has plans to build a new ballroom.
For the flag-raising ceremony, Trump was accompanied by a group including Charles Kushner, the new US ambassador to France and father of Trump’s son-in-law.
Kushner, a real estate executive who spent time in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to tax evasion, among other crimes, was pardoned by Trump in 2020, near the end of his first term.
Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka in 2009, served as the president’s adviser during his first term, notably on conflict in the Middle East. The Middle East overshadowed the debut of Trump’s new flagpoles, with the president facing a series of questions from reporters about whether the United States would join Israel’s airstrikes on Iran.
“I may do it, I may not do it,” Trump said when asked.