Have You Ever Heard About Potemkin Villages?

The phrase "Potemkin villages" refers to anything created intentionally to hide the truth .

Grigoriy Potemkin, full name Grigoriy Aleksandrovich Potemkin, was a Russian military leader and nobleman.
There are many rumours how he was one of the favourite Russian empress Catherine the Great’s lovers.

What we know for sure on the other hand is that he helped bring Catherine to power as empress, and for that he was highly rewarded.

As military general, Potemkin played a significant role in the expansion of the Russian Empire during the late 18th century.

His main interest was Russia's southern boundaries and the future of the Turkish empire. In 1776, he came up with the strategy for capturing Crimea, a plan that was later successfully executed. Additionally, he worked on the Greek project, seeking to revive the Byzantine Empire with one of Catherine's grandsons.

Although Crimea was successfully annexed, colonization did not go as planned. To hide the truth from the Empress and save his reputation, in 1787, Potemkin ordered the construction of fake villages along the road the Empress was traveling. She was visiting the frontline territories with a select few foreign ambassadors. These new, bright houses, with happy peasants brought in from Central Russian villages, were all meant to hide the harsh reality of poverty and ruin in the newly annexed territories.

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