пускать пыль в глаза (puskat' pyl' v glaza)

Literally: Throw dust in eyes

Example: “Дорогой офис нужен был, чтобы пускать пыль в глаза инвесторам.” — The expensive office was there to throw dust in the investors' eyes.

English equivalent: To throw dust in someone's eyes

Origin: The most specifically Russian theory traces it to old-style fistfights (kulachnye boi), a traditional form of organized combat, where one dishonest tactic involved concealing a small bag of sand or dust and throwing it directly into an opponent's eyes mid-fight — a cheap, underhanded trick that temporarily blinded and disarmed them without landing an actual blow. A second theory treats the Russian phrase as a direct borrowing of the French jeter de la poudre aux yeux, itself documented from around the 1700s, pointing to the same literal tactic of blinding an opponent with a handful of thrown dust or powder. A third, more distant theory reaches all the way back to gladiatorial combat in ancient Rome, where fighters reportedly used the identical trick of throwing dust or sand to blind an opponent momentarily. Across every version, the same physical trick — a cheap, literal blinding — evolved into a purely figurative one: creating a false, flattering impression through misdirection rather than substance.