The sun was rising in Artopolis. The sun, in a manner of speaking… There was no sun in Artopolis for Artopolis was recovered by a gigantic dome that reproduced natural climatic conditions. The city had been created ex-nihilo long ago as the planet was lapsing into international war, biological and nuclear terrorism, global warming disaster, and demographic explosion.
Some brilliant minds had then the idea to rescue the most gifted individuals and to gather them into protected areas so that Mankind survives through its most exemplary representatives. “Operation Noah” (given the circumstances, our brilliant minds had no time to lose in looking for original code names) proved extremely complex. Selection was in itself a delicate matter. How to establish who would deserve to be granted life? How to condemn so many others to death? Driven by their wish to preserve the greatest discoveries and advances of Mankind, the brilliant minds paid little attention to the structure. They decided that each science or realm of human activity would receive its own city. They were not inter-disciplinary to say the least. Still, as they were not completely opposed to a certain extent of dialogue, they grouped the new cities within regions in accordance to some gross classification.
On the west, Artopolis was neighbouring Philopolis and its small suburb Lacanopolis; on the east, Cliopolis, that displayed the entirely reconstructed patrimony of Mankind, from the Parthenon to the Pyramids to the Coliseum; on the north, Liberopolis that contained all the libraries of the world; on the south, Musicopolis, the noisiest of all cities. The whole region was called Humanitas.
On the left, Humanitas had a common border with the agitated region of Politicos. One must confess: the brilliant minds had not been that inspired with Politicos. One wonders what’s gotten into them all of a sudden when they created Totalitaropolis, which was continuously launching attacks against its neighbour, Demopolis. On the right, Humanitas had a common border with Religio, another turmoil-stricken region since the brilliant minds had the idea to give each religion a city. Despite these mistakes, “Operation Noah” was a success. After all, without the brilliant minds, nothing would have been left. Even if the selection process of would-be survivors had been somewhat tricky, by and large the mission had been fulfilled.

Artopolis was divided in two. The separation was marked by a river. On the right bank were all the most important, successful art institutions hosting the most important, successful artists, curators, filmmakers, art critics, and so on. On the left bank were the others: more or less alternative art spaces, artists hardly earning enough to support a family, or curators forced to do plenty of jobs to survive. The two groups had been formed by a random drawing. The intention at the beginning was good: if everybody had been equally important and successful, then nobody would have felt as such. Quickly, life would have been meaningless and boring. Some adrenaline had thus to be injected into the system. The differentiation between the two groups was in status, visibility, and money. It was neither a matter of talent nor creativity. As consequence of this carefully crafted system, one side lived in the fear to lose while the other lived in the hope to win. It was regulated by the communicating vessels principle. On the one hand, some important, successful artists would sink into oblivion. Some important, successful institutions would become despised empty shells. On the other hand, some ignored curators would rise to fame. Some alternative art spaces would meet unexpected respect.
Unfortunately, this beautiful scheme proved dysfunctional. The most important, successful people and institutions could not accept such impending threat. Their first strategy was to make it sure that nobody from the left bank could penetrate their enchanted circle. They had to be prudent however. If word spread, they could soon face a rebellion. Therefore, they established the Bureau. The Bureau was a network of foundations whose mere function was to issue calls for proposals that maintained the fiction of openness and equality of chances. Of course, most of the applications that arrived to the Bureau were immediately thrown into the garbage. Sometimes, one was selected for the sake of the deception. But, it was like a one-night stand. After being granted once, the artist, the project, or the space would return to the complete anonymity of the left bank.
The Bureau was managed by the Clerks. Over years, the Clerks had gained an enormous power. If in the early phases, they had been dependent on the most important, successful people and institutions, they had in turn progressively conquered their autonomy by binding to Politicos which they provided with artistic goods. More than once, Politicos, especially Demopolis had dictated the trends to be followed by Artopolis. The right bank had complied because obedience had brought the most important, successful people and institutions increased financial means, thanks to the good relationship between Demopolis and the city of Capitopolis in the far way region Economicos.
At some point, years before our story starts, Marxopolis, another city of Economicos, tried to counter the power of Capitopolis. First, the authorities of Marxopolis decided to support the left bank: the people there were the proletarian masses of art, weren’t they? Soon, Marxopolis had to admit that these tactics had failed. Thus, it shifted its support to the right bank. Some of the most important, successful people and institutions were pleased with it. At last, a bit of action, theoretical positions on which to disagree, new funny subjects to be dealt with… The whole situation however led in a flash to the bloody First Arty War. The truce between the warring parties, the Marxopolitians and the Conservativo-Capitopolitians, was signed at the Centre for Contemporary Art. Both sides had realized that, after all, they were fighting for the same objective: preventing their archenemy, the left bank, to access their privileges. Whatever strategy used in that purpose was welcomed as long as it was effective.

Then, the right bank felt the need for more elaborate means to protect itself against the possible intrusion of the left bank people. That is why it founded the Prop. The Prop employees were putting posters in the street: announcements of the right bank exhibitions; portraits of the most important, successful people; and so on. They also controlled the broadcast system. Loudspeakers were placed at each corner, endlessly proclaiming the names of the right bank people and institutions. It was very clever: by dint of hearing and seeing the same names all the time, some individuals of the left bank began to believe that the fame of the most important, successful institutions and people was justified. Soon, however, squadrons of workers were requested as the majority of the left bank people had the untoward tendency to tear the posters down, draw moustaches on the portraits of the most important, successful people, or cut the electrical lines of the loudspeakers.
When it came to tactics of counter-insurgency, the Prop was never short of inspiration. It started training recruits for infiltrating the left bank and reporting on potential conspiracies. Most of the new employees performed well and several plots were thwarted. One must say that the rewards were highly stimulating: a free-rent studio for two years, a commission for an installation in a public space, or a big solo show on the right bank. Nevertheless some did not understand why they had to do the dirty job for the others, given all were most important, successful people. How come the whole situation had turned to their disadvantage? This healthy suspicion made them defect to the left bank, where after debriefing the information they supplied was enthusiastically rewarded by tiny group shows in alternative art spaces or twenty-copy roneotyped articles.
At that time, the right bank was busy with the Second Arty War (known too as Third Intra-Philo War, and also First Aesthetics Secession). Answering the emergency call of Philopolis, it had sent troops to help the Philopolian authorities carry out the philosophical cleansing of the city. Cohorts of Philopolian citizens were marching the streets of the city brandishing the first chapter of “Mille Plateaux” (the whole book was far too heavy to be carried at arm’s length for hours) and hunting dissidents. Enormous statues of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Benjamin, Arendt, and Lévinas were erected on the main squares. Streets and avenues were renamed: Nietzsche Avenue, Schopenhauer Boulevard, and Pascal Street became Badiou Avenue, Agamben Boulevard, and Virilio Street. Those who dared to pretend that Leibniz, Kant, Spinoza, and Descartes had been essential in philosophical thinking were put into jail. Though hardly understanding the reasons behind these terrible purges, the most important, successful people of Artopolis were happy to come to the Philopolian authorities’ assistance: it meant less books to be read, no? The role played by Marxopolis in the Second Arty War remains unclear until today. Even the most naïve person would suspect some collusion with the Philopolian authorities as the masterminds of the philosophical cleansing had proposed to create the University of Lenin. This is not our story however. It’s up to the historians of Cliopolis to settle the issue.

When the Artopolian troops came back, a few months were spent in organizing commemorative exhibitions, symposia, workshops, and screenings about the Second Arty War. It had turned the hottest trend on the right bank - which explains why the most important, successful people and institutions neglected the latest changes on the left bank. After a thorough observation and analysis, some groups there had decided to apply for the benefit of the left bank the very strategies carried out by the most important, successful people and institutions. Taking advantage of the lack of attention from the right bank, these groups contacted the authorities of Demopolis and Capitopolis. Soon, delegations were sent. Since diversity and competition are the driving forces in Demopolis and Capitopolis, did the delegations preach, why always help the same individuals and institutions? The Demopolian and Capitopolian decision-makers found the argument convincing. The delegations were sent back to Artopolis with some money and one obligation: the name of Demopolis and Capitopolis should be mentioned in any new project, book, or show.
After a while, the most important, successful people and institutions noticed that something had changed on the left bank. The alternative art spaces looked less gloomy. There were some expensive installations in public spaces. Even a few publications had been printed. Where did the money come from? What is not the sign that the right bank had not achieved complete mastery? The Prop infiltrated a few agents who came back with scary news. The left bank was supported by the very sponsors of the right bank! The crisis cell of the Prop convened an urgent meeting. For days, the Prop members stormed their brain. When they finally emerged from their office, impatiently awaited by all the most important, successful people, they had the solution.
The first part of the plan aimed to override the themes that the left bank had put in fashion. Diversity was not bad, but the Prop had a better idea. The time had come to deal with Polemus. Polemus, another of the great ideas of the brilliant minds, was the city gathering all the conflicts that were raging before Mankind disappeared. Mass killing, genocide, suicide attacks, bombardments, concentration camps, militias, refugee camps, destroyed villages, mass graves, or state terror – all were there. To those wondering what strange idea had come to the brilliant minds, let’s recall that their purpose was to preserve every discovery of Mankind: was it not the case of man-made violence? The most important, successful people sensed immediately the big hit. Delegations were sent to Demopolis and Capitopolis. Since the mission of Demopolis and Capitopolis is to contribute to peace and development, did the delegations preach, why not to demonstrate their commitment to populations in dire straits in the most visible way, that is: art? The Demopolian and Capitopolian decision-makers found the argument convincing. The delegations were sent back to Artopolis with an amazing amount of money. On top of all, on their way back to the city, the most important, successful people of the delegation even persuaded themselves that they were working for the good of the inhabitants of Polemus, and not simply for their own careers. Meanwhile, the left bank people had received a letter from Demopolis and Capitopolis. The letter read: Due to some change in our policies, there are no longer available funds for diversity-oriented initiatives.
A special office was created for the realization of the second part of the plan. It was called the Rec. The employees, the Recuperators, had two main functions. The first one was to spot the new tendencies or projects on the left bank that could prove interesting for the right bank, then to materialize them before the people on the left bank even raise a finger. The second one was to discreetly seize on the art spaces of the left bank. At the beginning, the Recuperators bribed some alternative space runners, promising to find for them new, clean, well equipped spaces on the right bank. As we all know, however, the interest of the most important, successful people was not to widen their own group. Therefore, they changed their strategy. The Recuperators sent some Prop employees in a survey mission. They located the empty spaces that could be occupied and renovated in a hand-turn. As the octopus unfolds its tentacles, the right bank started its expansion on the other side of the river. In their progression, the most important, successful people demonstrated an impressive sense of history. Not one palace of some long-forgotten dictator or former industrial warehouse was neglected in the recuperation process.
As a result, the left bank people lost half their art places and public spaces. They had even less money than before as they tried to staunch the frightening advance of the Rec. And they were completely desperate. There was nothing to be done. The right bank had won. Some of the left bank people migrated to other cities, hoping for better days in Demopolis, Capitopolis, or Marxopolis. Others tried to find part-time jobs in Liberopolis or Musicopolis since they wanted to stay in the same region in case... Some, however, hardened and decided to fight back.

The time has come now to begin our story – the story of the cruel, pitiless Third Arty War.

The sun was rising in Artopolis, and the dim artificial light produced by the dome was bit-by-bit exposing a horrific scene. The streets of the left bank emerging from dark were filled with destroyed equipment, broken painting frames, torn canvases, pieces of installations, lacerated photographs, and trampled mini-DVs. Tanks were making their way through the trash, crushing the last few things that had remained intact. The Third Arty War had started.

A few weeks before, the right bank people had convened an important meeting. Radical decisions had to be made. The left bank was battered, very well, but everybody knows that the most dangerous enemy is the one who has nothing to lose anymore. The most important, successful people could not live with such scary thought. Some accused the Bureau, the Prop, and the Rec of being short-sighted, lazy, and clumsy – in one word, hopelessly stupid. These scatterbrains were quickly silenced by the others: after all, everybody had agreed the strategies to be applied. Moreover, the time was no longer for regret, but for action. And only one solution was left: the left bank had to be exterminated. It was the only way to eradicate the threat. The Bureau, the Prop, and the Rec resuscitated. That was something they could organize.
The friendly links with Polemus proved very useful. It was kid’s stuff to borrow tanks, AK-47’s, mortar, rockets, and other niceties. The most important, successful people refused the atom-bomb that was so gently proposed by the authorities of Polemus. They somehow understood that it would have been extremely harmful to the creation of the brilliant minds. The Bureau sent its fittest, strongest employees to training camps in Polemus. Within a few days, they were ready for the fight. The enemy was only a bunch of weak art people, no big deal.
The day before launching the attack on the left bank, the most important, successful people and institutions organized a gigantic opening all over the right bank. All the museums were open. Each artist had contributed a work. There had been a contest to name the best curator and all had won the first prize. A publication gathering texts from every art critic and culture theorist had been printed and distributed to everybody. In short, the right bank was exulting.
On D Day, the troops were dressed, and eager to pick up a fight. The most important, successful people were rushing to cheer them. Some were throwing rose petals on them from the balconies of the Museum of Modern Art. All the artists were shooting them because, of course, many retrospective exhibitions would be organized after their victorious return. Other artists were drawing on the tanks (for sure, the inhabitants of Polemus would scarcely appreciate this blossoming of inspiration). Others were making deals with the troops to get some war trophies (who knows, that could look good in a new installation). Joyfulness and optimism were at their peak.

The attack took place at dawn. Before the left bank people had even realized, most of their art spaces had been bombed, and their studios crushed. Protected by army vehicles, the right bank troops were burning artworks and equipment. Some groups tried to resist and to save their works. They were beaten without mercy and thrown into trucks. Where were they taken to? Oh, this was certainly the most vicious and cruellest idea that the most important, successful people had ever had. While the employees of the Bureau were in training camps learning how to use an AK-47 or drive a tank, the Prop had sent some of his officials into another part of Polemus, Ghettopolis. There, they had studied how to build and manage a concentration camp. Back in Artopolis, they applied this newly acquired knowledge to a waste ground at the east of the right bank. It was quickly transformed into a model camp surrounded by barbed wire fences, watchtowers, and high walls. The plan was to put all the left bank people there. Artists would work as slave labourers to build all the equipment and material needed by the most important, successful people and institutions. Left bank curators, theorists, and art critics would have to mass produce texts and ideas.
Though small guerrilla groups were formed on the left bank, resistance did not last long. Fearing of being bogged down in a protracted conflict, the right bank called Polemus for more weapons and troops. Polemus zealously complied for its inhabitants were always looking for new battles and massacres. The guerrilla troops of the left bank succeeded in sending a delegation to Marxopolis. The city’s authorities could not remain indifferent to their fate. Were they not the last bastion of anti-capitalism? Marxopolis indeed disliked the sneaky involvement of Demopolis and Capitopolis in the Third Arty War as the two cities were supporting the transfer of men and equipment from Polemus to Artopolis. Still, once bitten, twice shy. Marxopolis had no intention to take part in such wars. Actually, it had long ago decided to support more promising causes, especially in Economicos. Thus, the left bank was not a priority and the requests of the guerrillas were politely turned down.
As a consequence, the defeat of the left bank people was just a matter of time. The guerrillas were hunted down and executed on the spot. The others who had preferred to surrender were deported to the camp. There, the life and hygienic conditions were so hard that the majority of inmates died within the first year. A handful survived a bit longer. As the ideas and texts they produced were getting worse and worse (how to blame them?), the right bank people deemed them expandable and killed them.

The artistic cleansing of the left bank had been achieved. The right bank people suddenly benefited from the other side of Artopolis. Some of them decided to settle there. They got funds from Demopolis and Capitopolis to restore the destroyed buildings. Given the situation (no running water, no electricity, everything ruined), the rents were pretty low. It was easy to open art spaces. Many exhibitions and symposia were organized on the past of the left bank. Some of the left bank artists were re-discovered and, posthumously, reached fame. Several texts written by left bank art critics were declared cornerstones of art theory and aesthetics. Soon, the left bank was experiencing an amazing cultural boom.

I heard recently that the right bank is completely outdated now. It is even said that if you don’t live on the left bank, you’ll never make a career.

AT THE BEGINNING…
When Catherine II announced her decision to make a grand tour of the Ukraine and Crimea with foreign diplomats, Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin, governor-general of the concerned regions, faced a critical situation. These areas were devastated by turmoil and poverty. How thus to prepare a display that would hide this unfit reality? As much of the royal progress was conducted via riverboat, Potemkin ordered the construction of entire pasteboard villages to be set up on the banks of the Dnieper. He imported peasants, flocks, and herds from a thousand other villages to make a show of prosperity, thereby triggering famine in the depopulated hinterlands. Once the procession had passed, he had the entire meretricious apparatus dismantled and reconstructed several versts downstream in order to deceive the imperial court anew.

DIPLOMATIC CONVERSATION ON THE DNIEPER
-Did you see that?
-What?
-The window, it has no glass.
-Come one!
-No, it has no glass… Wait… it’s not even a real window… It looks like painted on the wall…
-Give me the binoculars... But… I can’t believe it… You’re right, all the windows are painted on the wall!
-They’re completely nuts here! What guys… They put some facades with a few windows painted on them and they think we won’t notice it!
-(still looking) And painted flowers!
-And painted flowers! Oh, gosh!
-(laughing) You should see the flowers! Where did they find their models? Who painted that? Who dared? The guy should be shot!

DEFINITIONS OF THE POTEMKIN VILLAGE
-Pretentiously showy or imposing façade intended to mask or divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition
-Something that appears impressive but is ineffective and insubstantial
-Any hollow or false construction, physical or figurative, meant to hide an undesirable or potentially damaging situation
-Politically generated appearance that covers a less impressive underside

MILITARO-TOURISTIC CONVERSATION IN THE DMZ
-If you look carefully… no, this direction, madam… you will see that the building that faces us is nothing more than a façade designed to look large and impressive. In reality, it is a frame only a few inches thick.
-(from a mess of voices, one can hear various comments) No! Incredible… These guys, they’re completely crazy!... Oh, come on, you see it even from here… It’s pretty well done, no? They must have good craftsmen there…
-There… yes, this way, madam… There is the village. The village… In fact, what seems to you a modern and well equipped village is faked.
-Hey, look at this, there’s not even glass within the windows!
-If you stand here during the night, you can see the lights come in. But they come in always in the same buildings, always at the same time, because they are automated.
-They could make some effort, these guys! Automated lights, no glass in the window, that’s cheap! Man, I feel cheated. You should refund the tickets, it’s not ok!

POINT OF DIVERGENCE
In discussion of counterfactual history, a point of divergence (POD) is a historical event, with two possible postulated outcomes. The POD is used as the starting point for the extrapolation. One multiverse theory posits that PODs are occurring all the time, with an infinite variety of possible outcomes that each creates a universe.
Could we find some PODs in the Potemkin village case? For instance, Catherine the Great could have discovered the sham… and then? Would she have punished Potemkin for causing her such humiliation in front of foreign representatives? Would she have thanked him? Would she have decided that, given so terrible misery that it had to be hidden, her role as sovereign was to urgently improve the fate of her people? And what if nothing were true? Modern historians stipulate that the whole story was actually a gossip, launched by some opponents of Potemkin or even one of the foreign ambassadors. In the latter case, the gossip says a lot as to how Russian power has been perceived abroad: the truth that appears then is not that of Russia but rather that of international relationships and political judgments.
But what if, after all, the story was not a gossip? Let’s imagine that a piece of the pasteboard facades had survived the centuries… Would it have been restored and preserved in a national museum? Would have it been exposed by the Bolshevik leaders as the proof of one of these imperialist tricks that maintained the peasants in slavery? Would it have simply remained in some cupboard of a local family, useless object transmitted from one generation to another, and whose past has been forgotten? Would it have ended as a prop in some old dusty theatre?
Meanwhile, true story or not, the image of Grigory Potemkin the dedicated courtesan setting up huge-scale theatre shows for his empress, has evicted the reality of Grigory Potemkin the builder of the Baltic Sea fortifications and fleet. The buffoon instead of the military expert…

HISTORY TO COME: TRIBUTE TO ZINOVIEV
“In the year 5787, historians and archaeologists discovered the remnants of a long gone civilization. Twenty meters deep in the earth were various objects and parts of buildings indicating the high degree of achievement reached by this civilization. Potemkinburg, as apparently the people in question used to call their capital city, seems to have been a nice place where to live. Thanks to the brilliant scientists of the Omnipresent and Omniscient Institute of Research, we have been able to retrace their history. It started in the 18th century. The origin remains unclear. Even the founding myth is mysterious. Some sort of construction (the delirious idea that a politician of that time would have ordered the building of theatre-like facades has been discarded as groundless and ridiculous) would have been erected. After some cataclysmic event (here again, the stupid hypothesis that a bunch of fanatics preaching some sort of outdated socialist theories would have seized power has been merely rejected), a tiny group would have sheltered in this construction, put fences all around, and built watching towers all along the fences. After a few decades, their civilization would have developed its own social rules, among the strangest ones. For instance, this amusing custom called “election”. Every few years, Potemkinburg inhabitants would put a paper in a box, and then a new Boss would be chosen to lead Potemkinburg. As plenty of people wanted to become the Boss, they apparently had to promise whatever and the contrary, if they wanted to be ‘elected’ by Potemkinburg inhabitants…”

HUMANITARIAN DISCUSSION IN THERESIENSTADT
-Do you see that?
-Oh, yes, beautiful flowers!
-No doubt, they are well treated here. The King will be happy to know that.
-Yes, and look at this grass, so green. Oh, and did you see that?
-What?
-Look, this small cozy café! Packed with customers! You see, that’s the ideal life. You work hard the whole day for them, but they know how to reward you. Café, concerts, playground for the children… The people even look well fed, no?
-Yes, apparently, they’re not starving. You see, all these rumors we heard… You come, you check, and you understand that all these alarmists are liars.
-I’m sure it will be the same there.
-There?
-Yes, you know, for our next mission in Poland…

THE CRIME SCENE
These past years, our investigation office has explored a wide range of explanations and interpretations as to the Potemkin affair. Where? When? Who was involved? Who did benefit? Who was the victim however remains unclear: Catherine II, the foreign ambassadors, or the peasants? Each side had good reasons: the empress for being deceived; the foreign ambassadors because they would have no disaster news to report to their government; the peasants because nothing had changed in their life. This uncertainty led us to believe that the Potemkin village has been a story of shared interests, refusal to testify, and deliberate blindness. The motive of Grigory Potemkin in this affair is still obscure. Of course, many have put forward the idea that: 1) Potemkin didn’t want any problems related to his governance of Ukraine and Crimea; 2) Potemkin was so in love with Catherine II that he realized this big show only to make her shine in front of foreign representatives; 3) Potemkin, a skilled specialist in international relationships, knew that an impressive demonstration of power and richness was necessary in front of representatives of foreign countries; 4) It was in any case easier for Potemkin to setup such scenery than to do something concrete in the village.
One hypothesis has been overcome. What if Grigory Potemkin had been the greatest utopists of his century? The fakery not conceived as the deformed mirror image (in that case: the correcting mirror image) of the miserable village… The pasteboard facades not used as an improved version of some saddening reality… No, all would have been elements of a gigantic stage where the play was about starting. Which play? A play about the way power has to be staged and the role of any participant in the show; a play about the possibility of peaceful, fruitful relations between a place and its inhabitants; a play about the just governance of the sovereign and the voluntary servitude of the people… In one word: a satire…

ON MUNICIPAL POLITICS
Let’s admit it: it happened to you too. You cross this small ugly city, and you think that a bit of painting here, a bit of lights there, and it would definitely look better. The mayor must be some kind of lousy guy, who is paid for doing nothing, or at best understands nothing of urban planning, or quality of life. Let’s take the reverse situation: it’s 5 in the morning, you’re nicely sleeping, outside it’s rainy and cold, and soon (much too soon), you’ll have to get up and go to work. Fair enough, you enjoy your last hour in the warmth of the sheets and blanket, when suddenly… guys start shouting, whistling, and singing in front of your window… How come! You live on the fifth floor! Guess what, here they are, the painting squads! True, it’s now five years that the inhabitants of your street are petitioning the municipality to get a decent sewage system (one cannot imagine how the street stinks in the summer). But the municipality has other priorities. Colorful priorities: pink, red, yellow, green, blue. Your city is shit, but at least, it’s a colorful shit.

THE BARRACK
When the Governor and his battalion headed back to St-Petersburg, the peasants tore the pasteboard facades into pieces. Some used them to cover holes in the roof of their houses. Others designed some kind of basic furniture. Others burned them (the winter was pretty cold). Still, there was a pile of colorful pieces left over on the main square of the village. A couple of peasants decided to build with them a barrack where they could sell homemade vodka. The success was dazzling. The barrack was crowded all the time. However, after a few months, prostitutes, thieves, and thugs established their headquarters in the barrack. After many customers had been molested, robbed, and killed, the peasants abandoned the place. Soon, all the underworld of the village and its surroundings gathered there and settled their camp. Within a couple of years, the place of the barrack had become the most infamous part of the village. Time passed. The very beginning of the barrack had faded away in the memory of the inhabitants. Who could still remember the best homemade vodka of the region, let alone the pretty colored pasteboard facades of the Governor? Meanwhile, the era of bloodthirsty exploiters and lackeys of imperialism had come to its end. First, the new authorities were far too busy to pay attention to the barrack. One day, however, the son of the new secretary for the Ideological Correctness of the Economic Affairs of the Village (ICEAV) had the bad idea to slum it in the barrack. After he got seriously beaten by two drunkards, the secretary of the ICEAV ordered the destruction of the place. It was a nest of capitalist snakes and counter-revolutionary swines, and as such, it had to be crushed, he did say. The task was immediately carried out. After all, these were times of high efficiency. The whole camp was razed to the ground. The prostitutes, thieves, and thugs were accused of political crimes and sent to some far away resort for a little punishment. No doubt, the barrack affair had been a blow for the enemy whose imperialist conspiracy had been brilliantly thwarted. Thus, the new authorities decide to erect a monument to commemorate this great victory of the progressive forces. A sculptor was commissioned (the nephew of the sister-in-law of the secretary of the ICEAV). He invited some friends in his studio. They opened a couple of bottles, called a few girls, the marijuana dealer… When the sun rose, the definitive sketch of the monument was ready.

FOR AN ANALYSIS OF URBAN IMPROVEMENT
This phenomenon is known as beautification. Others call it urban cosmetics. Both terms are synonymous since they designate the very same act that consists of superficial operations undertaken on most visible locations. Belonging to this phenomenon is the category of inoffensive things: municipal gardeners plant new flowers on flower beds as soon as winter is over; workers paint anew grey facades that have been dirtied by pollution or repair a few roofs that have collapsed under the snow… It is in general welcome and appreciated and gives all the inhabitants the feeling that: 1) they did not elect some moron for mayor – the proof: he’s taking so good care of the city; 2) they were right when they voted for the other candidate because definitely the guy who sits now at the municipality hall is such a moron – the proof: all what he is able to do is to take care of flowers. The category of inoffensive things, however, can turn to problematic. The refreshment of a few houses (you know, always the same ones, right in the city centre, next to the bar and restaurant district always packed with tourists) take over the more urgent, social tasks that concern the well-being of ALL the inhabitants of the city. A murderous traffic light (twenty victims per year), a shanty-town like suburb where the rates of unemployment and delinquency pulverize the last ten years records of the country… Who cares? The category of problematic things proves frankly political when an Important Foreign President comes for a visit. Nothing should disturb his clear and serene gaze. Wherever He looks at, He should find only beauty and happiness. So, the municipal team calls the police and says: Throw me away these beggars, they’re disgusting, a stain in the landscape! Finally, this phenomenon reaches its full extent when entire districts are razed and populations displaced (but not given new accommodation) to let a huge space free for the construction of an amazing hyper super modern stadium that will host whatever Olympic Games.

THE PROOF
Some historians doubt that the Potemkin village has ever existed. With a contemptuous, though decent, gesture of our hand, we discard their suspicion, because, thanks to the generous donation of the family X (they refused that their name be mentioned), we are in position to prove that Grigory Potemkin actually built these pasteboard facades:
“That day, the Governor arrived with a team of carpenters. At the beginning, we rejoiced. At last, something would be done for us. You should have seen the village at that time, with its destroyed houses and hovels, mud and dirt everywhere. Not one corner without children begging. Soon, we understood that the Governor had another idea in mind. The carpenters did not touch our houses but raised enormous facades in front of them. Then the painters came. The Realist claimed that he would paint our misery on the facades. He would hide no detail. Art, did he say, was a weapon aimed at the powerful and at injustice, poverty, and inequity. When he heard this, the Aesthete saw red. He himself would paint beautiful things on the facades, because art is made for the pleasure of the viewer, and not for the reproduction of some ugly, shitty reality. As the Realist and the Aesthete were grabbing each other’s throat, the Dauber said that he would paint whatever since, from far, the empress would see nothing, and we, the peasants, would understand nothing. After all, why to try so hard when you don’t have the adequate public? The Beginner said he did not agree. He was sure that these painted facades would have the greatest impact. Public art, did he assert, was the superior form of the artistic revolutionary gesture, it would change our life. The Opportunist nodded and said that, in fact, these facades were such a good idea that he could organize the same thing in a few villages. At this moment, the Governor arrived and told them to shut up. Time was money”.

OFFICE OF SOCIAL CRITICISM
“Of course, if one really were in secure possession of the best abstract and general theory, one probably wouldn’t bother with internal criticism at all. All the local critics could be replaced by a universal Office of Social Criticism, where an international recruited and specially trained civil service (of professional philosophers? political theorists? theologians?) applied the same moral principles to every country, culture, and religious community in the world” (Michael Walzer, “Thick and thin, Moral argument at home and abroad”).
These past years have brought, for anyone involved in contemporary art, the divine surprise of renewed commitment, from a majority of artists and curators, to political and social issues. Collapse of the Communist bloc, Leninism, transition in Eastern European countries, social democracy, globalization, anti-globalization movements, Antoni Negri, imperialism, colonization, war, feminism, capitalism, European Union, Turkey, Middle East, terrorism, human rights, civil rights, ecology, Islam, history, migration, liberalism, and so on – don’t worry, nothing has been neglected.
Does it mean that the Art branch of the Office of Social Criticism aims at the (re)politicization of art practices and discourses? Or does it rather point to some insipid resurrectionism, a without-danger ground of alleged social consciousness and good intentions? As far as these discourses and projects pretend to be critical, deconstructive, subversive – a challenge to the world order to be taken seriously! –, they prove a quite effective 1:1 copy of the fashion system and its promotion tricks. The devitalized nostalgia that impregnates contemporary art indulges itself in the illusion of transparence.

THE BARRACK
When the secretary of the ICEAV saw which kind of shit the nephew of his sister-in-law had produced, he almost fell dead on the spot. Ugly, monstrous, ridiculous, humiliating! The heroes of the great repression of the crypto-fascist and counter-revolutionary conspiracy all looked like under-developed gorillas and hybrids of fat pig and hairy rat. But it was too late. The inhabitants of the village had already spent twenty thousands voluntary and happy week-ends in building the monument. The best was to skip the ceremony and to quickly forget about the place. And of course, the sculptor would receive his just reward: he could always use his skills on the ice blocks there in the north. Apparently, the secretary of the ICEAV was not the only one to find the monument an amazing horror. Soon, the people living on the square could not stand anymore such affront to human eyes each time they opened their windows. After two or three years, most of them had left for nicer (at least less encumbered) surroundings. And again, the place, with the monument this time, became the shelter for all sorts of petty thieves, beggars, prostitutes, and intellectuals with suspect ideas. And so it went for a long time.

THE STORY OF THE BIG MAC: ABOUT INTERNATIONAL FRANCHISED ART
In 1982, the museum educator John Hennigar Shuh published in the Nova Scotia Journal of Education an article entitled ‘Teaching Yourself to Teach with Objects’. He included a photograph of a McDonald’s hamburger container and a list of “50 ways to look at a Big Mac box”. Smell it, taste it, feel it all over. Does it make a noise? What are its measurements? Height, weight, diameter? Are all McDonald’s boxes the same size? How much has the box’s shape been determined by the material used, the method of construction and the box’s function? What raw material was used to produce this material? Is it a renewable resource? What does this say about attitudes toward conservation in our society? Is the box well designed? How might the design be improved? If someone fifty years ago set about to design a container for a hamburger, how might they have done differently? What might the hamburger container of the future be like? What does the Big Mac box tell us about the people who use it? About our society? If you showed the Big Mac box to as many people as you could in a ten-minute period, how many would not recognize it, and what does this tell us? Etc.
This description, reported by Michael A. Ames in his essay ‘The Big Mac Attack and the Anthropology of Everyday Life’, in “Cannibal tours and glass boxes – The anthropology of museums” (1992) is partly the reason he got interested in McDonald’s. “The hegemonic function of the hamburger - he writes – derives from the very fact that business success is offered as a model for success in other areas of life. (…) The ideology of business enterprise is extended beyond the marketplace, and the marketplace itself becomes a testing ground for individual worth and social value. This same thinking is applied to assessing non-economic areas of life, including the work of scholars and artists and their institutions. (…) Thus we see how the ideology of competitive individualism and commodity consumption batter down the marketplace walls to march triumphantly through the streets of everyday life. Ronald McDonald and his hamburgers are but the vanguards of this commodification of everyone”.
The mechanisms of business enterprise inform the functioning of international franchised art. It is based on speed, short-term work, and customer satisfaction. Its production procedures are intended to limit reflection, alternative, and dissent. Quantity, popularity, and majority opinion form the holy trinity of criteria that will define the problems, solutions, theories, and methods of franchised art. What sells is good. The main principle is: “The best surprise is no surprise”. Therefore, originality must be discarded. Of course, franchised art, though based on conformist discourses and standardized displays, sometimes welcomes local initiatives. New issues can be experimented. The successful ones will further on be recuperated and incorporated into the system.

BORDERLINE
Wherever you moved, you would bump into them. At the corner of your street, on television, in the local history museum, in the newspapers, in shops, during the parade of the national celebration day, at school… not even a second of rest. More or less clever, more or less well crafted, more or less effective, more or less hidden, they were everywhere. At the beginning, a small group organized the resistance. This group called itself “Truth fighters”. The “Truth fighters” bombed them, covered them with denunciation graffiti, published underground critical literature, and so on. But soon, the resistance movement understood that all these actions were pointless. It didn’t prevent them from mushrooming and being increasingly elaborate. Worse even: by acting against them, the resistance became part of the system, the exact thing missing to give them the tiny bit of reality they were still lacking. Soon, enormous psychological problems were detected within the population. First, people could no longer distinguish between reality and illusion. Then, they gave the same value to reality and illusion. At the end, they were not interested anymore in separating reality from illusion. The authorities were forced to intervene. Of course, it was too late to fight them, because they had invaded any realm of life. Still, something could be done, and with their superior genius, the authorities did it. They created a new territory called Almost Autonomous Republic of Annexed Reality (AARAR). Within the borders of this 20 square kilometer territory, all the real things were gathered and displayed. Immediately, the mental situation of the population improved. Now, everybody could ask a visa for the AARAR. After six or seven years – the average period to get the visa – you could go and spend a day there, indulging in the contemplation of real things. Then, you would end your visit in the nice shop at the checkpoint to buy some souvenirs and postcards of the real things. It was such a success that, within six months, there was a queue of one hundred kilometers at the checkpoint. It was unmanageable. Even the shop, though it was supplied by a network of thirty thousands factories, did not have enough souvenirs for all the visitors. The people would kill each other for a reproduction of a real thing. Every day, the security forces separated fighters, brought the corpses outside, and cleaned the shop (the guards were equipped with a Kalashnikov and a broom). Definitely, the AARAR was no good deal. The authorities, whose infallible superiority proved once more, as always, dazzling, found the culprits. A handful of Truth fighters would have infiltrated every level of the AARAR and triggered this catastrophic situation. To the great relief of the population, the conspirators were punished, the AARAR administration purged and reorganized. The real things were put in glass boxes, behind safety cords, and watched by hundreds of guards. The AARAR was surrounded by barbed wire, electrical fence, and walls. Now, at last, reality was well protected.

OLD GOOD RECIPE
As you have no surprise with the French fries to be consumed in any McDonald or with the continental breakfast to be savored in any hotel throughout the world, the same goes with contemporary art.
The worldwide dispatched representatives of the Office of Social Criticism are bound by the one-term contract of access to international recognition: never depart from the official artistic line if you want your event to be appreciated by the contemporary art weathermen. Identical works, identical views, and identical displays: innovation and experimentation are forbidden. The only thing that can be changed is never the show, but the setting, just to give our small team of artistic good taste arbiters the possibility to combine their professional duties with (enlightened) tourist leisure. Palm trees, soviet architecture, or pagodas shape the interchangeable decorum of an increasingly hermetic salon-like situation.

THE BARRACK
A new, fresh political wind blew over the village. The secretary of the ICEAV has since long joined the nephew of his sister-in-law there, in the north. The new authorities were not like the former ones: they were even more genial, and they liked transparence. Meanwhile, the square and what was left from the barrack had been completely forgotten – a piece of waste ground where people pissed and threw away their garbage. The monument was covered by graffiti (“Fuck you”, “Blow me bitch”, “Eat your shit and shut up”, “A. is a fag”) that demonstrated the outstanding level of sociality among the inhabitants of the village. But things were about to change. The new authorities decided to open the borders and invite a few visitors from abroad. After all, they had nothing to hide, no? After a harsh contest, the village was selected as Model City for Visitors from Abroad. It was really the highest award. Soon, a delegation made of the best specialists in any domain of life (the Delegation) was formed and trained to welcome the director of the most important museum abroad (the Director). The Director was received with all the honors. The Delegation brought him to all the greatest achievements of the village: the painted anew palace of the Governor (18th century), the restored small church (14th century), the renovated peasant house (11th century). But the Director was not interested. Then, the Delegation took him to the mass grave (yes, there had been some periods when punishment had been somewhat exaggerated) and to the former prison, now turned into a memorial. The Director found them slightly more attractive, but still, showed no enthusiasm. Almost desperate, the Delegation brought him to the biggest block building ever made on earth (able to accommodate fifty thousands people in only one flat), the newest kindergarten, the office of social welfare (remarkable for its incredibly effective bureaucracy: only twelve years, seven months, and twenty-four days were needed to treat one file), etc. Nothing: the Director didn’t give a shit. The Delegation felt lost and hopeless. Suddenly, as the group was passing nearby the place of the barrack, the Director cried out: “That’s it”. The Delegation looked all around but saw nothing. The Director pointed his finger to the monument. “What a masterpiece! It expresses so much of that time! I want it!” The Delegation sighted with relief. Nobody understood why the Director found this crap, the disgrace of the village for decades, of any interest, but that was not their problem. The monument was shipped abroad. Soon, a factory settled in the village and started fabricating millions of miniatures of the monument. The miniatures were exported to flea markets, trendy design offices, and fashion shops abroad. The monument was exhibited in all the most important museums worldwide. Hundreds of conferences on the monument were held in the most prestigious universities. And, within one year, all the artists all over the world were creating in the style of the monument.

He thought big they called it a phallic
They didn’t know he was panoramic
(The Pixies)

POTEMKIN, THE CHAMPION OF SUPER-MODERNITY
Super-modernity: acceleration of history; overabundance of information; shrinking of space; multiplication of imaged and imaginary references; prevailing of ego. You think super-modernity is a contemporary issue – new technologies of communication and transportation, networks, collapse of grand narratives and ideologies, psychoanalysis and emphasis on individual meanings, etc… What if super-modernity had roots in the 18th century? What if it was born along the Dnieper River? What if the champion of super-modernity had been ignored for more than two centuries? The time has come to give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s.

I SHALL BE AN AUTOCRAT: THAT’S MY TRADE.
Debate topic: Which Monarch best represents the spirit of the Enlightenment: Catherine the Great or Frederick the Great?
Team Structure
1. Each team will consist of 5 or 6 members drawn at random.
2. There must be an equal distribution of speaking responsibilities (each speaker gives at least one speech).
3. Cross examination will be conducted as a panel (but in an orderly and organized manner - that means one question at a time).
Affirmative team: Your responsibility is to argue in favour of Catherine the Great as the monarch that best represents the spirit of the Enlightenment and to demonstrate, using facts and reason, that Catherine was truly the Greatest.
Negative Team: Your responsibility is to argue in favour of Frederick the Great as the monarch that best represents the spirit of the Enlightenment and to demonstrate, using facts and reason, that Frederick was truly the Greatest.

POTEMKIN, THE GREAT IMPRESARIO
You know, all these peasants in their lovely folkloric clothing, waving from the shore at Catherine? They were supers from the Actors’ Union. And the blue, green, yellow pastel facades? Without the painters of the Art Academy, they would not have looked so good. And the nice gardens in front of each house? Well, it’s thanks to the landscape designers of the Architects’ Association. One more person though should be credited. No, it’s not the costume designer. No, not the prompter either. No, not the electrician, not the stand-in… Yes, you got it, the director!

TOURING THE VILLAGE
Turn on the right. You see this enormous statue in the middle of the square? It’s ugly? Yes, it’s rather tasteless. Could you expect more from an unskilled sculptor who made his career by sneaking his way in political circles? Not everybody in the village has been that lucky – or that opportunist. Keep on straight, two hundred meters, and turn left, on the second street. It’s the street of the Institutions. What’s this big building? It’s the Centre for Contemporary Art. To exhibit here requires active networking. Very demanding, but once you’ve entered the enchanted circle, your life becomes wonderful: exhibitions, grants, fairs, biennials, workshops, and residences… The big tower on the other side, it’s the Foundation. This is where the Committee decides whether you get some money for your project. They meet every month. How does it work? Well, they have a list of key words and they count how many times you have put them in your application. The ones who win are those who have the highest number. What do you think? That the Committee members were flipping a coin? Cross the street, toward the little alley. Yes, go ahead. This little house amid the trees, it’s the Conspiracy Antechamber. That’s where the cast-off meet to discuss all kind of subversive plans to thrown off the Institutions. No, it never works. In fact, the rent of the house is paid by the Foundation. The Institutions don’t like criticism that much. They prefer to control it. They call it self-criticism. If a cast-off becomes too critical, the Institutions threaten to stop paying the rent, and all the other cast-off throw the idiot away.

ONE FINE JULY MORNING
Un beau matin de juillet, le réveil
A sonné dès le lever du soleil
Et j'ai dit à ma poupée: faut te s'couer
C'est aujourd'hui qu'il passe
On arrive sur le boulevard sans retard
Pour voir défiler le roi d'Zanzibar
Mais sur-le-champ on est r'foulés par les agents

Alors j'ai dit

On n'est pas là pour se faire engueuler
On est là pour voir le défilé
On n'est pas là pour se faire piétiner
On est là pour voir le défilé
Si tout le monde était resté chez soi
Ça f'rait du tort à la République
Laissez-nous donc qu'on le regarde
Sinon plus tard quand la reine reviendra
Ma parole, nous on r'viendra pas
(Boris Vian)

One fine July morning, the alarm clock rang as the sun was rising. I told my girl: ‘hurry up, it’s for today’. We reach the boulevard without delay to look at the parade of the King of Zanzibar. But right away, the policemen push us back. So I said: We’re not here to be given a roasting, we’re here to see the parade. We’re not here to be trampled on, we’re here to see the parade. If everybody stayed home, it would do the Republic a disservice. So now let us watch it. Otherwise next time the Queen will parade, be sure we won’t come to see it.

TRUSTING THE SURFACE
Happy-go-lucky, sure that 2D would never betray him while he was creating a uniform visual universe – an unbroken mental vision of what the ideal landscape unfolded as continuous scene. Surrounded by a bunch of Saint-Thomas who, firm in their belief that what you see is what there is, ensured the triumph of optic over haptic. Potemkin, media pioneer, who knew that the forefront visualization of clichés would be enough to plug any reality breach which could unexpectedly deface his beautiful mound. Potemkin, media victim, whose reputation over centuries has been shaped by gossiping on his fake villages and his life of debauchery.

IF I WERE THE MUSEUM DIRECTOR
Option 1: Love narrative
Three paintings: a scene of the Tsarina’s Court, a portrait of Catherine II, a portrait of Potemkin; A bust of Voltaire; excerpts of correspondence with Rousseau and Diderot; Photos of the Hermitage; Love letters of Catherine and Potemkin; small piece of the pasteboard façade.
Option 2: Revolution narrative
Three paintings: miserable condition of the serfs, poverty of the population, harassment of political opponents; Map with all the wars during the reign of Catherine; Drawing showing Catherine having a sexual intercourse with a horse; Pamphlet on Potemkin shagging his five nieces.

URBAN HOCUS POCUS
We took the tombstones of the cemetery (well, there was nobody left to protest) and we used them to build the outside stairs of the municipal theatre.
This was the house of the factory’s director. When we seized power, we turned it into a cultural club for our war veterans. You said? Don’t you think they too deserved a bit of luxury, after sacrificing for our victory? Are you a counter-revolutionary?
We razed the area. On the empty ground, we built a huge mall. You know, people are fed up with commemoration. They prefer to go shopping.
These 17th century buildings were destroyed during a bombardment. We reconstructed them in the same way. But only the façade is made of stone. The rest of the building is made of concrete. You hardly notice the difference, don’t you?

ENDLESS DECEPTION
One of the successful entertainments touring royal and imperial courts at the end of the 18th century was the Chess-player Turk, an automaton invented by a Viennese mechanic, Wolfgang von Kempelen. In fact, a skilful chess-player, the war-amputee former officer Worousky, was hidden in the machine. Kempelen and the Turk arrived in Saint-Petersburg, on the invitation of Catherine the Great, wishing to meet the automaton.
The empress accompanied by a numerous suite entered the library and took her place at the chess-board. The chest and the Turk's body were then examined, and when all were perfectly convinced they contained nothing but the clockwork, the game began. It proceeded for some time in perfect silence, but Catherine's frowning brow speedily revealed that the automaton was not very gallant towards her, and fully deserved the reputation it had gained. The skilful Muslim captured a bishop and a knight, and the game was turning much to the disadvantage of the lady, when the Turk suddenly gave a violent blow on his cushion, and pushed back a piece his adversary had just moved. Catherine II had attempted to cheat. The haughty empress, unwilling to confess her weakness, replaced the piece on the same square, and regarded the automaton with an air of imperious authority. The result was most unexpected – the Turk upset all the pieces with a blow of his hand, and immediately the clockwork stopped. "My good automaton, your manners are rather rough," the empress said, not sorry to see a game she had small chance of winning end thus. "You are a famous player, I grant; but you were afraid of losing the game, and so prudently upset the pieces. I am now quite convinced of your skill and your violent character. (To Kempelen): Your automaton pleases me so much, that I wish to purchase it. You can leave it here tonight, and come to me tomorrow morning to arrange the price."
There is some reason to believe that Catherine wished to commit an indiscretion. Fortunately, the skilful mechanic managed to baffle her feminine curiosity by carrying Worousky off in the big chest. The automaton remained in the library, but the player was no longer there.

FAMOUS AND OFFICIAL VISITS
Writer Gorky in the gulag; American president Nixon in China; Red Cross delegation in Auschwitz; actress Jane Fonda in North Vietnam; American journalist Elizabeth Becker in Pol Pot’s Cambodia; Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi in North-Korea; American president Bush in New Orleans; French president Giscard in Ceausescu’s Romania; Iranian president Ahmedinejad in Columbia University; Khrushchev in Albania just before the break of diplomatic relations with Hoxha; Paris Hilton in Rwanda…

Ah, Mon Dieu, Quel Temps, Quels Gens!
Ah, My God, what an epoch, what people!
(Catherine the Great, Mrs Grumble’s Birthday, 1772)

I was dreamin' when I wrote this
Forgive me if it goes astray
But when I woke up this mornin'
Coulda sworn it was judgment day

I reclined the armchair and ordered a glass of vodka. For the first time since the phone had rung last night, I could relax. I had asked a window seat. Not that there was something to look at, but I hate to be disturbed every five minutes by my neighbours. I couldn’t believe that only a few hours had passed since the call of my boss. I was quietly sleeping when I heard his voice on the answering machine:
-Joe (Joe is my pseudonym, in our job you can’t use your real name), pick up the phone! I know you’re here! Man, we found it! It has been located.
I pounced on the phone:
-You’re kidding me!
-No man, we got it. Our Russian branch, they located it.
-Come on, boss, you know that the Russians are not serious. Last time they said they found it, they almost sent us straight to the moon to check it!
-I know, I know, but this time, it’s reliable. It’s even so obvious that I can’t understand why we didn’t think about it earlier. Now, move your ass and come to the office. You’re the one in charge for the mission.
You see, that’s how I found myself in the flight to Kiev.

I guess you’re dying to know what my job is. I work for the OLEPOV. Doesn’t help you, right? Ok, it’s the Office for the Localization and Eradication of Potemkin Villages. It rings a bell, doesn’t it? I know, I know, you believed it was something like the Holy Grail or the Fourth International (by the way, for your guidance, the Fourth is completely outdated: they’ve already founded the Seventh one). You heard about it but you think it doesn’t exist… Hoax… Urban legend… The mysterious agency to be held responsible each time conspiracies are unravelled and manipulations exposed to the public eye. Well, guys the truth is - the Watergate, it was us. Our teams of scientists are everywhere debunking all the Roswell or Loch Ness or filming behind the political scenes. Without us, my friends, the world would be so full of lies, shams, and fakeries that you would not be able anymore to distinguish your right from your left. We’re the missionaries of reality.

I woke up as the plane was landing. Well, Kiev airport was not as bad as I had imagined - nothing of a big hub, but ok. My local contact, Iuri, was waiting for me. He was banal, no remarkable feature, like most of us: average body height, ordinary figure, discreet clothing… It’s a rule of the OLEPOV: eccentricity is forbidden, we must fit in with the crowd.

You’re smiling. You’re thinking: what the fuck this B-rate James Bond is telling us! That’s what you think, right? Who gives a shit of the OLEPOV? Let me tell you one thing. Our enemies are numerous, and they are powerful. Governments, multinationals, clergies, media… All those who want to deceive you and to lure you into lots of trouble in the name of their own interests... You get the picture now. Good. Let’s keep on.

The morning after, we headed to our destination. A long trip: we had to cross Ukraine from north to south. My mission was simple: to make it clear that we had found the right target and then, call the destruction squad. If it was that easy, why had the OLEPOV sent one of its best hunters? you will ask. This Potemkin Village was special. It was the village the OLEPOV had tried to locate since almost two centuries. It was the original Potemkin Village. Yes, you read it well, the very village built by Prince Grigory Potemkin himself. My responsibility was enormous. I had been the One chosen for carrying out this holy task.

The OLEPOV was created in 1847, in London, by Sir Horatio Koshko. The father of Sir Horatio was a Russian adventurer who had migrated to England at the end of the eighteenth century. A gambler, pimp on occasion, and a tall, good-looking man, Koshko senior made quickly his way through the aristocratic circles of London. He seduced a wealthy old maid (Lady Cecilia was already 39 when she fell in love with him). Despite the opposition of her family, she married him. One year later, she bore him a son. The honeymoon between Lady Cecilia and Koshko senior didn’t last though. Repelled by the orgies and mistresses of her husband, Lady Cecilia put all her affection on her son. She educated him with an iron hand. Koshko senior was killed in a duel when Sir Horatio was eleven. Some evil-minded people suggested that the duel had been somewhat arranged by Lady Cecilia. Nothing could be proven however.

Iuri brutally stopped the car on the roadside. The white van that had been following us since one hour overtook us. I understood Iuri. The old, toothless lady that has indicated us the way in the last hamlet had looked very suspicious to me too. Exactly the cliché of the poor old woman peasant, with her coloured scarf on the head and her heavy – too heavy for her – basket of potatoes…. I could smell the fake from far. She was probably one of their agents. “Joe, we go to the closest big city and we change the car”. He was right: safety first.

Sir Horatio became an accomplished man, running skilfully the family properties and factories. His education had paid off: shrewd businessman, talented sportsman, brilliant linguist (he spoke eight languages, including Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Aramean), passionate scientist supporting all kinds of experiments and researches, philanthropist involved in several charity circles, dedicated husband and father. In one word, Sir Horatio was perfection incarnate.

We had lost only a few hours. As soon as we got the new car – a red old banger – we resumed our trip. Iuri was getting increasingly nervous. He was convinced that their agents were everywhere. A less experienced village hunter than I could have panicked. Not because of all these supposed enemies, of course. Over years, I had acquired nose enough for spotting them kilometres away. No, what worried me was to work with a guy scared by his own shadow. Sure, the boss had explained me: most of our guys in Ukraine had had their cover blown following the Orange Revolution, that’s why I had to work with a freshman. Fine. Still, in case of real blow, I would have hard times in taking care of both the mission and Iuri.

When he turned fifty, Sir Horatio suddenly became preoccupied. It had nothing to do with his business or his family. No, it was some strange feeling – the feeling that something was going wrong. Where? Everywhere! He started suspecting newspapers of sprinkling their articles with half truths and disinformation; the House of Commons and the House of Lords of continuously lying. After Robert Pate tried to kill Queen Victoria, Sir Horatio got sure. The woman giving herself for the Queen was an impostor. The entire royal family was fakery. Robert Pate knew it. Alas, he had failed in his endeavour to uncover the conspiracy.

Oh, I see you coming, you narrow-minded ignoramuses! You think that Sir Horatio was completely batty. Think about this: do you believe that a lunatic would have convinced hundreds of men to commit to his cause? No, of course! The whole Great Britain had turned into a gigantic trompe-l’oeil - that was it. And Sir Horatio had the proof.

We had eventually reached our final destination. We stopped in some banal hotel, neither cheap nor expensive. We would rest for the next twenty-four hours. The hardest part of the mission was still to come.

The sky was all purple
There were people runnin' everywhere
Tryin' 2 run from the destruction
U know I didn't even care

We left the car in the parking of the hotel. It would have been impossible to hide it in the steppe. In our commando uniform, we were fitting with the dark. Though it was night, seeing was not a problem. Huge laser rays were striating the sky, illuminating the landscape as in full daylight. Even from there, you could feel the vibrations of some powerful techno music. My whole body felt the excitement of the hunter getting closer to his prey. The village was at sight.

Before the duel, Koshko senior had told his son a weird story of the time he was a soldier in the imperial army of the Great Catherine. He had been sent to a new garrison in Crimea. The area had been recently annexed. The situation was especially hard there. Extreme poverty, turmoil... The population did not accept the Russian yoke. One day, the troops were taken to some small village on the shore of the Dniepr. It bristled with soldiers. Some were erecting big pasteboard facades in front of the slums. Others, aiming their rifle, were watching the inhabitants who were gathered next to the river. Others were bringing flocks. Koshko noticed a man, riding a horse, and yelling at everybody. The Governor General, he was said. Suddenly, the troops hustled the peasants who, reluctantly, started waving in the direction of the river. Koshko saw a boat. As soon as it was out of sight, the soldiers rushed to the facades, dismantled them, and charged them on carriages. Koshko heard sounds of gun shots and screams of terror. Then, he and the other garrison’s troops were pushed to the peasants. Men, women, and children – they were all dead. “Bury them”, ordered the lieutenant.

We entered the newest district of the village, a few streets of hastily built villas, made of rough porous bricks. It was dirty. The ground was strewn with cans, bottles, plastic bags, cigarette butts, and broken glass. Apparently, the people who were staying here had no environmental concerns. The whole setting was typical of a Potemkin village. It was supposed to be luxurious, but once you got close, the cheapness was eye-catching. Even the cans and other garbage looked thoroughly displayed as if to create some kind of happy-go-lucky, party-mood setup.

Koshko senior deserted the army soon after this incident. Years later, Sir Horatio could recompose the puzzle. His father had probably tried to blackmail Russian high-rank officials and fled to England when his attempt failed. Sir Horatio was sure that the same Russian generals organized the assassination of Koshko senior. Who knows? Maybe even Lady Cecilia had been involved? This would never be discovered, as she had passed away years ago. All what Sir Horatio knew is that his father had, by chance, had attended the birth of a vast conspiracy. The proof was here, in his own hands: a tiny piece of one of the pasteboard facades that Koshko senior had succeeded in stealing.

We were now close enough to clearly see the dance floors. Fake palm-trees were planted in rows. The mix of architecture was of very poor taste – a Greek temple, some sort of ugly futurist dome, beach bungalows… At the entrance, men in camouflage battledress were scrutinizing the control screens of their computer and checking each newcomer. They were certainly not mere bodyguards, rather militiamen and former militaries trained in camps in Afghanistan or Chechnya.

It didn’t take long to Sir Horatio to understand that the network of deception had spread worldwide. The hydra had probably more heads than he would ever be able to cut. Still, he was not the kind of man to let himself go with paranoia or depression. He would not give up and let some evil forces hoodwink the world. Sir Horatio was rich enough to counteract. Each fake would be destroyed, each manipulation unravelled, each liar pilloried. It would be an endless task, he knew it: a sacrifice without recognition or gratitude. Thousands of men would be needed. Hundreds of them would fall in the course of their mission. His fortune would be spent in recruiting, training, and equipping them. So be it.

Their agents had been so clever. For decades, we thought that they had moved the original Potemkin village in some secure place. And all this time, it was here, under our eyes, it hadn’t left its birth country. The other Tsars certainly used it. And once the Bolsheviks in power, it had prospered, invaded the whole country. When the Communist system collapsed, it had been kept hidden in a nuclear plant. And now, here it was, in the guise of an innocent techno-party village. It was extremely ingenious.

That’s how the OLEPOV was born. Over years, the organization steadily grew. On his deathbed, Sir Horatio ordered his son to pursue the mission until the original village would be found and razed. Since then, the OLEPOV has been a family affair, transmitted from one generation to another. Today, our men are everywhere, courageous truth-fighters engaged in a merciless war against Mystification. It can be your spouse, your neighbour, the teacher of your kid, or the postman. We’re an invisible army crisscrossing the world in search for the matrix. The day it will be destroyed, all the other Potemkin villages will vanish and light will reign.

Did you bring them? asked Iuri. I showed him the two customized yellow suitcases. They were our entrance ticket to the enemy’s den. We were ready. We could now penetrate Kazantip.

I got a lion in my pocket
And baby he's ready 2 roar

My mother is beautiful. I mean, my real mother. No, no, it’s not the right word. My biological mother... My real mother, I mean the woman who brought me up, nobody can say she has ever been a beauty. Strong, dedicated, affectionate, for sure, but beautiful… How do I know that she is beautiful? Are you blind? You know, I’m collecting all her pictures. I must have thousands of them. Mind you, after almost forty years! Everything I can find about her, photos, press articles, TV-shows, DVD’s… My wife hates it. She cannot understand it. I never told her the truth. She thinks that I’m in love with this woman. At the beginning, she thought that I was just a fan. She found it funny. But over the years, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She started quarrelling with me all the time about it. She says I’m obsessed, mad. Once, she even tried to set my collection on fire! Can you imagine that? I don’t get it, you know. After all, I don’t disturb her with all this. I don’t force her to watch the movies of my mother with me. Sorry? Oh every evening. As soon as we finish the dinner, I watch one of her movies. What? Ah, you meant how I do know she’s my biological mother! Well, that’s a strange story. I discovered it by myself. It was like some progressive awareness, you know, like putting altogether the pieces of a puzzle… But at the same time, deep inside me, I always knew that my parents were not my parents. I can’t explain you why. When I was a child, for instance, we used to have a theatre play at school, at the end of the year. I was always acting the lead female character. The teachers said that I was actor-born, that it was amazing how I looked like my mother, I mean my biological mother... Mmm? I was just thinking about the day my mother found me with one of her dresses. She slapped me in the face and went to cry in her bedroom. It’s not that I wanted to be a woman or something like that. It’s… well, I think I wanted to see if I was really looking like my biological mother. You don’t think so? Even the nose? Well, you know, when aging, I began to look much more like my father. I mean, my biological father, not the man who brought me up and… Sorry? My time is over? I see you next week, then.

Do you like seagulls? Do you know that the term “seagull” is completely wrong? In fact, they don’t live near the sea, they prefer to nest inland. I like seagulls so much. Most of the people think they are a nuisance, but it’s not true, you know. They eat dead animals which could be a threat for us, or they devour grasshoppers and mice in the fields… “My dreams with the seagulls fly out of reach, out of cry”… What’s that? Oh, it’s a song. Beautiful words, no? What do they evoke for me? They make me think of my father. My biological father… I think he liked to leave like this, fly with the seagull, completely freed for a moment from all his obligations. He was a very powerful man you know. Who? My father? You mean my real father? No. There’s no comparison here. My real father, the man who educated me, was not a bad guy, but honestly, he had nothing remarkable. A boring man who worked in the boring office of a boring factory… You know, for years, I thought that he had a second life, that as soon as he was closing the door of our house, he was transforming into some kind of superman. But when I turned sixteen and got, say’, acquainted with sexual issues, I understood that he could not be my father. A woman such as my biological mother could never have made a child with this man. What an aberration! How did I find who was my biological father? Mmm, that was a long and difficult process. You know, my biological mother, she’s a wonderful lady. She would never cheat on her husband. So, that was my first problem. Because, if I were their child, why didn’t they keep me, right? Then, I thought: “Ok, she is not the cheater type, unless she fell in love with somebody exceptional”. Of course, such man would never have left her. So, he must have had good reasons not to stay with her. Official, superior reasons, State-reasons. You follow me? And there was only one man in her life who could fit that profile. Sorry? Yes, himself! Who were you thinking about? Not the existentialist Italian lover, I hope!? Do you like dogs? You see, I always loved dogs. When I learned that one saved the life of my father, I mean my biological father, everything became crystal clear and… What? It’s over? Already? I see you next week.

I bought this suit yesterday. What do you think? It looks good on me, no? Why white? Well… It’s clean, it’s pure. Lightness, refinement, spirituality… Sorry? Yes, of course it has to do with my father. He liked white suits. He was so handsome, so perfect. It’s strange when you think about it. My parents, my biological parents, they both came from poor families. But they had such innate a sense of distinction and elegance… something noble, you see, aristocratic… I remember the first time I used a cigarette holder. You cannot imagine how my father, my real father, laughed at me. He asked me if I intended to play in a cabaret. Poor man… He had no idea of elegance. A swan lost among ducks, that’s how I felt during my teen years. My parents were so ordinary. I knew I was different. Genes never lie. I always liked clothing. It’s a passion. I would spend all my money in clothes, if my wife let me do it… Really, I was not made for the life I have. Such a mess… At the factory, I’m surrounded by narrow-minded workers who are all jealous of me. I’m stuck in a suburb small flat with the witch. The witch? Oh, that’s how I call my wife. You see, I was made for adventure, luxury, prestige… You know, being with important and famous people, travelling all over the world, having huge responsibilities, making big decisions… That’s what I was made for… Sometimes I hate my biological parents. Why did they abandon me like that, in a poor family? They were not able to find a better environment for me? They had no time, no relation? What the fuck had crossed their mind?! For forty years I’ve put olive oil in bottles for a miserable salary! Can you imagine that? Me? It’s a kind of funny though… Maybe is it the very brand of olive oil my mother pours in her bath? Sorry? Oh, you didn’t know? My mother says that bathing in olive oil keeps you young. She likes olives so much. So do I by the way. When she was cooking for my father, she sprinkled every dish with olives, even pies! And she… What? Are you sure this clock works? That seems to me a bit short today and… Ok, ok, I’ll see you next week.

I won’t be able to come next week. I’ll be away. Oh, in Croatia… Not far from the Slovenian border… Like every year. There? I’m celebrating the real birthday of my father… Yes, yes, now. I don’t want to mix with the crowd, you know, so I go a bit before. Anyhow, they don’t even celebrate his birthday on the right date there. You say? No, no, I go alone. You don’t think I would take the witch with me, no? She’s not even able to spell ‘Balkans’ correctly. You know, sometimes I think that my father, my biological father of course, would have been ashamed of me. The son of a womanizer like him… spending his whole life with a vulgar and uneducated woman. Oh, I know you, you will ask: why did you stay with her then? Sorry? You didn’t intend to ask it? Ah… What? Am I ashamed of my father? I don’t understand you… What! What history? Politics? Repression? What are you talking about? Well, listen, I’m not interested in all that stuff. Do you think that it’s the kind of relationship a son has with his father? My father was a hero. And if something bad happened, it was not his fault. I’m sure he didn’t know. And even if he knew… What do you think? That you can allow yourself to be lazy when you rule a country? Authority, that’s what people need. You know, people don’t understand. They think about their petty interests, they don’t see the whole picture. In fact, they’re like children. And when they misbehave, they must be punished, that’s all. It’s for their good. Take my example. I understood much too late the virtue of authority. Mind you, my son wanted to study at the university. I told him that he was not clever enough. But my wife, she supported this insanity! They campaigned for months. I was so fed up that in the end I said: ‘Ok, you want to study at the university, fine, do it! But don’t ask me for money!’ You know what I discovered later? That my wife was sparing some money for him! Every month, she gave him something! And you know what the result is? Now, he refuses to see me. He says that I’m a selfish bastard and loser. The little pretentious asshole! You understand now why one must be tough? If I had used my paternal authority to prevent from studying, he would work in the same factory as me and he would still respect me! And that’s why you… What? It’s over? So, I see you in two weeks then. But tell me, Doctor, do you think we made any progress?