Meaning of Potemkin village | Babel Free

Definitions

Any false construct devised to disguise a shortcoming or improve appearances.

idiomatic

Equivalents

Examples

“Such concentration not only simplifies the task of keeping tabs on foreigners' movements, but it also enables the Government to influence the outside world's picture of Russia by arranging matters in Moscow to make it a sort of huge, latter-day Potemkin Village.”

“When a government substitutes propaganda for governing, the Potemkin village is all. Since we don't get honest information from this White House, we must instead, as the Soviets once did, decode our rulers' fictions to discern what's really happening.”

“When Soviet bureaucrats wanted to impress foreign visitors with the success of the grand experiment, they would visit Potemkin villages—fake towns where actors pretended to be living a life of luxury amid bulging granaries and well-paved streets bustling with happy babushkas pushing prams.”

“In the interviews, some residents praised the changes, but others described the reconstruction as a “Potemkin village,” an ornamental facade camouflaging problems created by Moscow’s invasion, like a chronic water shortage.”

CEFR level