Travel Stories - Georgia

The landscape is somewhat the same – agricultural fields and a hilly green landscape with here and there a village. We skim past the republic of "South Osetie", where I can not go as a tourist - at least it is strongly advised not to go. We drive horizontally through the country to the city of Gori, Stalin-city, where I arrive around noon. Here, along the road many artfully stacked watermelons and lots of other fruit. First we zigzagged with the bus through the city where I already saw the museum of Stalin and then we stop finally at the busstation. The first thing that striked me was the ugly white futuristic building that has been built next to it. Here too, a flood of taxi drivers coming in - I walk through the crowd to find a viewpoint for the fort. It is a chaotic mess of people here and everywhere there seems to be a market here - shops have put their goods outside and here are streets and sidewalks broken up and homes are debris. The trick here is to find the way to my intended "homestay", but after a quarter of an hour I’m overheated and decide to ask around. This works and after some people’s advice and after 10 minutes walking around I find it. It has a small courtyard and some rooms - it is far from perfect, but I want to try it for a day or two.

I walk back to the sight in the city where I saw the Stalin museum. Because I am the only "English" speaking, I will have to wait twenty minutes for other English speaking people. The woman behind the counter advises me to simply pay the ticket and to go and see the museum without a guide. Not everything is in English but you get a good impression of what you hear and see. It is a purely Stalinist building with large pillars, thick carpets, grotesque chandeliers, a gigantic staircase that takes you from information from Stalin to the actual museum upstairs There are three large rooms with lots of copies of letters and other pieces - I also see personal items such as Stalin's wicker suitcase and a conference table from the Kremlin. Everything is chronologically set up starting with his youth in Gori, the time he became a Marxist and when he was arrested and banished to seven times (and managed to escape five times) and of course the meeting with Lenin. Photos, Stalin's book, his family and of course his victory over Nazi Germany are discussed. "Forgotten" are the starvation of millions in the Ukraine, the forced collective agriculture companies and the gulags all over the Soviet Union. There is a picture of the notorious "Ribbentrop-Molotov" treaty with Stalin in the background. The penultimate space is a kind of mausoleum-like space where the "Stalin mask" is located in bronze in the middle.

In a long hall are the countless gifts that the old dictator in his time as the highest leader of Russia and the Soviet Union got from other (world) leaders. When I come back downstairs, the club with an English guide just goes up and I trudge up the stairs again for a new round – now with guide – through the museum. Not a bad idea because I can now write some things down that I didn’t catch before; nice detail is that the construction of the museum was ordered by Stalin himself – he wanted it to be the museum of the Revolution. In 1950 (so still during his life) it was transformed into the Stalin museum. The girl tells the story and as a typical Russian there is no enthusiasm at all. There are two models of illegal printing houses in the hall - one from the city of Batumi and the other from Tbilisi; the latter still seems to exist (in the district "Avlabari") but where exactly does nobody knows here. Another detail that I am interested in - are the children of Stalin - I know that the oldest was executed in 1943 in concentration camp "Sachsenhausen". This is because Papa Stalin did not intend to exchange former field marshal "Paulus" (the loser of the battle of Stalingrad) against his son and thus to confirm his sacrifice towards the Russian people.

On the ground floor we see a cabinet of Stalin that is originally; it’s taken from the Kremlin - a large table with a few chairs. In a display case two original overcoats we are used to see in many pictures of Stalni and finally a whole cupboard full of personal items - his chessboard and his sword. Then it's time to go outside - in the Stalin park (the triangular park in front of the museum) a sort of Roman temple is built with large pillars and a large yellow roof that houses a small house - this is the only remaining house of Stalin's parents and is original. It is made of stone, has two small rooms (one of which was involved by the tenant) and inside some simple things like in a museum. The whole neighoubrhood in which the house of Stalin’s parents were living is bulldozered away expect for this house.  It is a strange sensation - after a brief glance inside, the door is locked again and the string is stretched in front of the wooden porch. Finally we take a look at the big green wagon that is placed right next to the museum - this is the wagon with which Stalin (the man did not like flying) was driven to the "Yalta" conference in Crimea, then in Ukraine, now Russia. Inside, it is equipped with every piece of comfort - a bath, central heating and a meeting room. For the rest some coupés, some with desk are there. The wagon seems to be bulletproof, which to my knowledge has never been checked. After all this, I thank the girl and pop down on a bench under a tree to write some details down I’ve just heard in the museum.