Did the Čemodāns restaurant in the Latvian capital refuse to serve Russian actress Chulpan Khamatova and was she even kicked out for communicating in Russian? No, that's not true: Both the actress and the restaurant denied it.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on the TikTok account @user9096623588115 on November 24, 2023. It was also shared by the accounts @vantilena15 (archived here), and @shoubi333 (archived here). Belarusian outlets have shared the claim, as shown here (at the 40:56 mark) and here. The case has been widely publicized by pro-Russian propaganda media, here and here.
The text overlay on the video (translated from Russian to English by Lead Stories staff) said:
Chulpan Khamatova was kicked out of a restaurant in Riga for speaking Russian language
The caption below the video (as translated) read:
Chulpan Khamatova was thrown out of a restaurant in Riga for speaking Russian.
The incident took place at the Cemodans restaurant in Riga, where the actress was having lunch. The waiter refused to serve her in Russian, and when she asked him to call the management, several people sitting at the next table came over and asked the actress to leave. After three minutes of arguing, Chulpan left the restaurant, promising to leave negative feedback, according to eyewitnesses.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Dec 13 12:46:04 2023 UTC)
Lead Stories managed to get in touch with Khamatova to find out if she was at the Čemodāns restaurant. She replied:
The restaurant itself denied it long ago. (I've never been there).
The restaurant denied the allegations, publishing a statement in three languages (Latvian, English and Russian) on its official Facebook account (archived here). Lead Stories reached out to the restaurant for comment, which replied (as translated):
This is a lie. And Chulpan herself confirmed that she was not here and that it was a complete lie.
In 2022, Khamatova moved to Latvia after Russia invaded Ukraine, making it clear that she would never be on the side of war.
