“Pokazukha” is more of a modern term (modern as in, i dont think it even hit the 80 year old mark) and is a bit more generic (refers to “showing off” or “for show” in general).
“Potemkin supermarket” is a reference to “potemkin village”[0], which has been around as a term since late 18th century, and it is a bit more specific (refers to a construction that provides a false facade to a situation, with the origin of it being an actual fake village constructed to impress the empress).
Also in English, "Potemkin X" is the standard phrase, even when referring to post-Tsarist times (and sometimes even to refer to non-Russian cases like Potemkin villages in North Korea to fool visiting Japanese of Korean descent as to quality of life in NK). I have never seen "Pokazukha" used in English at all.
Both are valid terms in russian language. But “potemkin x” is in the same league as “schadenfreude” in terms of usage in foreign languages, while “pokazukha” doesn’t really have any spread or presence in languages outside of russian language at all.
Only ever saw it in english in this thread and, a couple of times, in r/NCD threads (because they just love using random foreign words of the day there, like “pokazukha” or “smekalka”; to their defense, they are almost always used correctly lol).
I work with a lot of Russian speakers, my point is I would probably get my point across on average to them better with that word than Potemkin X. Your point about schadenfreude is good though.
> I would probably get my point across to a native russian speaker better if I use pokazukha rather than Potemkin Village
Agreed, you would. Potemkin X is not a russian language word or saying, it is more like a “obscure historical event idiom” that has no attachment to a particular language at this point. And that changes how often you would hear it used every day. I would guess absolutely any native russian speaker would know what “pokazukha” is. But with Potemkin X? Yeah, less likely.
I think I got a perfect analogy with another idiom to describe what’s going on here using an example - Sisyphean task (and its modern english equivalent “beating a dead horse”). If you try to get your point across to a native english speaker, I bet you would also have a much higher success rate using “beating a dead horse”. Try doing it to a native russian or italian speaker, and they would be confused. But if you try “Sisyphean task”, I bet you would have a much higher rate of succes in that specific case.
Not sure about other languages, but “beating a dead horse” idiom doesn’t exist in russian at all, despite it being used way more often than “sisyphean task” in english. While “sisyphean task” actually exists in russian.
Same with Potemkin X and pokazukha, but flip the language to russian. Both are used in russian language, but the native slang word for it (pokazukha) is way more frequently used in daily life. However, Potemkin X is an idiom that, while transcening the languages and international borders, isn’t used as frequently in real life as the original language analogues. But outside of those origin languages, no one would really use or know of those analogues.
Which is why it is kinda funny to see people trying to make “pokazukha” (aka flexing) or “smekalka” (quick-wittiness) into a “real” english word, given none of those are unique words describing something that isn’t already described well in most languages. As opposed to “schadenfreude”, which doesn’t have a perfect analogue in other languages, so it makes sense that it would widely spread and get adopted beyond the origin language.
TLDR: chart with two axi, one is popularity outside of the origin language and the other is usage in everyday life in the origin language. Potemkin X and Sisyphean task max out the first axis and are below average on the second axis. Pokazukha and “beating a dead horse” are very low on the “outside of the origin language” axis, but are high on the “everyday usage in the origin language”.
P.S. I am aware that “beating a dead horse” exists pretty much unchanged in German too, but that’s an edge case that doesn’t really change the overall idea.
