Potemkin village
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A Potemkin village is a construction, literal or figurative, that provides a façade to a situation, to make people believe that the situation is better than it actually is.
Because of a newly painted façade, the whole building looks as if it has been reconstructed, although the rest is still in decay (castle brewery in Kolín, Czech Republic).
Grigory Potemkin, namesake of the concept
The North Korean Peace Village, located inside the Demilitarized Zone, appears empty despite its advertised population of two hundred families.
False front commercial buildings in Greenhorn, Oregon, 1913
Catherine the Great
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Catherine II, commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after a coup d'état against her husband, Peter III. Her long reign helped Russia thr
Potemkin village
…is better than it actually is. The term comes from stories of a fake portable village built by Grigory Potemkin, a field marshal and former lover of Catherine the Great, to impress the Empress during her visit to Crimea in 1787. Modern historians agree that accounts of this portable village are exaggerated. The original…
Portrait, 1780s
Catherine in her childhood, by Anna Rosina de Gasc, 1742
Catherine as Grand Duchess around the time of her marriage (portrait by Georg Christoph Grooth, 1745)
An equestrian portrait of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseyevna from before 1749