Potemkin village

American  

[poh-tem-kin vil-ij, puh‐] / poʊˈtɛm kɪn ˈvɪl ɪdʒ, pə‐ /

Or Potemkin Village

noun

1. a pretentiously showy or imposing façade intended to mask or divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition.

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Etymology

Origin of Potemkin village

1935–40; after Prince Potëmkin ( def. ), who allegedly had villages of cardboard constructed for Catherine II's visit to the Ukraine and the Crimea in 1787

Example Sentences

“It’s a Potemkin village,” said Simon Haeder, a professor at Ohio State University who studies insurers’ provider networks.

From The Wall Street Journal

It was like the climactic scene in “Blazing Saddle,” when incompetent villain Hedley Lamarr tried to invade a small town with the baddest of hombres besides him only to find a Potemkin village.

From Los Angeles Times

The town has been compared to a Potemkin village, to Brigadoon, to a “feudal Disneyland” and to the town in the movie “The Truman Show.”

From New York Times

One team encountered a Potemkin village of Russian hardware, officials said, with dozens of parked tanks accompanied by a small security detail.

From Washington Post

Without vast oil reserves, the Russian economy would hardly exist and Russia’s Potemkin village of a government is really a kleptocratic police state dominated by a single cruel tyrant with delusions of grandeur.

From Seattle Times