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{{short description|Structure built solely to deceive others into thinking that a situation is better than it really is}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2015}}
[[File:Castle and brewery in Kolín 2.jpg|thumb|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]]).]]
In politics and economics, a '''Potemkin village''' ({{lang-ru|link=no|потёмкинские деревни|translit=potyomkinskiye derevni|}}) is a construction (literal or figurative) whose purpose is to provide an external façade to a situation, to make people believe that the situation is better than it is. The term comes from stories of a fake portable village built by [[Grigory Potemkin]], a [[field marshal]] and former lover of [[Empress Catherine II]], solely to impress the Empress during [[Crimean journey of Catherine the Great|her journey to Crimea in 1787]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Grigory Potemkin {{!}} Biography, Villages, & Facts {{!}} Britannica|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Grigory-Potemkin|access-date=2021-12-22|website=www.britannica.com|language=en}}</ref> Modern historians agree that accounts of this portable village are exaggerated. The original story was that Potemkin erected phony portable settlements along the banks of the [[Dnieper|Dnieper River]] in order to impress the Russian Empress and foreign guests. The structures would be disassembled after she passed, and re-assembled farther along her route to be seen again.
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