Of course, Russia’s rulers have usually preferred myth to reality. After all, it was during the reign of Catherine the Great that the “Potemkin village” was invented, whereby the squalor of the lives of Catherine’s serfs was hidden behind cheerfully painted housing façades as the Empress toured her country.
当然，俄罗斯的统治者们历来喜欢神话多于现实。毕竟，“波将金村”是在叶卡捷琳娜大帝统治时期发明的。在女皇巡游全国之时，这些村落以色彩明快的外立面掩盖了叶卡捷琳娜的农奴们污秽的生活。