Potemkin Village
The phrase Potemkin villages was originally used to describe a fake village, built only to impress.
The phrase is now used, typically in politics and economics, to describe any construction (physical or figurative) built solely to deceive others into thinking that some situation is better than it really is.
It is unclear whether the origin of the phrase, is factual, an exaggeration, or a myth - for information on the historical debate see below.
Russian minister Grigory Potemkin led the Crimean military campaign.
According to the story, he erected fake settlements, along the banks of the Dnieper River, in order to fool Empress Catherine II, during her visit to Crimea in 1787.
An alternate spelling is Potyomkin villages, derived from the Russian: Потёмкинские деревни, Potyomkinskiye derevni.
Read more about Potemkin Village: Historical Debate, Term Used in Legal System, Other Uses
Famous quotes containing the word village:
“Ezra Pound still lives in a village and his world is a kind of village and people keep explaining things when they live in a village.... I have come not to mind if certain people live in villages and some of my friends still appear to live in villages and a village can be cozy as well as intuitive but must one really keep perpetually explaining and elucidating?”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)