That's Grigory Potyomkin, a Russian diplomat and military reformer during the reign of Catherine the Great, in 1787. The story is told that Potyomkin, who had led the military campaign in the Crimea, had hollow facades of villages built on the banks of the Dnieper River, in order to impress the empress as she cruised on the river. It is doubtful that Catherine was fooled, but it's a good story. In any case, "Potemkin Village" has come to mean any hollow or false construct meant to hide an undesirable or damaging situation.
Metaphors, like everything else, get old and stale. This one has probably run its course, but after what happened yesterday in New Hampshire, we have the perfect replacement. It's the new metaphor to be used to describe any hollow or false construct meant to hide an undesirable or damaging situation: Obama Townhall .
