Stalin in Georgia

The republic of Georgia, located on the Caucasian isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, was founded in the turmoil following the collapse of the Czarist Empire during WWI. Located on the border with Turkey, at that time this region tried to untie from neighbor Russia, and proclaimed a libertarian socialist state.

Following the seizure of power by Lenin and the Bolsheviks, producing a devastating civil war which would go on raging all over the former Russian-controlled territory well into the 1920s, Georgia lost its independence, being sucked into the Soviet Union, similar to many other nations sharing a border with Russia – like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Latvia, etc.

A country with a remarkable wealth of history, inhabited since when traces of mankind started to appear on earth, with a deeply rooted Christian culture since centuries, a strong independence movement started to show in Georgia already in the 1980s, when the Soviet system was still destined to last for long in the eyes of many western observers. This independence feeling would culminate in the republic of Georgia leaving the USSR months before its actual end, already in early 1991. Since then, the country is openly hostile to Russia, and the formation in the early 2000s of two de facto Russian-backed independent states – South Ossetia and Abkhazia – over the sovereign territory of Georgia witnesses a mutual state of tension between Tbilisi and Moscow, still lasting today.

Despite this, and almost paradoxically, the Georgian individual possibly best known to the general public and to the world is an eminent communist character, a one-of-a-kind contributor to the history of the USSR and of the world – and someone would say, the most authentic incarnation of a communist leader – Stalin.

While Georgia, most comprehensibly, is striving to delete every tangible trace of the Soviet era – from statues to symbols and pieces of architecture – a few notable exceptions include some of Stalin-related relics in the country. In Gori, Stalin’s hometown, the house where Stalin was born is preserved under a bombastic Soviet-era canopy. Nearby, a unique museum dedicated to the Soviet leader, opened back in the late 1950s with a display of incredible memorabilia, is reportedly the most successful attraction in town, with crowds of visitors still today.

In an old district in Tbilisi you can find another unique point of interest – the so-called Stalin Printing House Museum. It was in this unapparent house that young Stalin operated as a pro-communist clandestine agitator in the early 20th century, well before the Bolshevik revolution in Russia.

This post covers these Stalin-related remains in the man’s home country, with photographs taken in summer 2019.

Sights

Joseph Stalin Museum – Gori

Stalin’s hometown, where he was born in 1878, is dominated by a scenic ancient fortress, sitting on top of an isolated mound. At the time of Stalin’s birth, that was also the geographic center of the town. When Stalin became… Stalin, his birthplace was turned into a place of pilgrimage, and a new purely-Soviet master plan was implemented in the city, creating a new gravitational center around the modest house of his parents.

The long axis which drives you from the major access road and the railway station south of the city to the house follows an almost north-south direction. A typically Soviet alley – straight, too wide and with mostly sad-looking buildings to the sides – links a bridge over the local river to to the house, going through a square with the town hall, built in a Soviet classicist style. A tall statue of Stalin used to stand on the side of the square, and it was torn down only in the 2000s.

Closer to the house, the alley bifurcates into a ‘Y’. Between the arms of the ‘Y’ you can find a garden with fountains and flowers.

To the far end of the garden, the small half-timbered house where Stalin’s parents used to live is preserved under a Soviet-style canopy.

Stalin’s parents were not well-to-do, and they actually rent the house, where they occupied only one room. Back in the 19th century, it was just one in a row of similar buildings. Following the radical reshaping of the area for celebrating the Soviet leader, the whole neighborhood was completely demolished, and only this block was left.

On the side and front facade of the house are marble signs in Russian and Georgian. The ceiling of the canopy features a stained glass light, with hammer and sickle signs by the corners.

To the back of the birthplace you can find a smaller statue of Stalin. Considering his generally acknowledged status as a bloody communist dictator, similar open air statues have been removed almost everywhere in the world – this is one of the few remaining exceptions (another being in Belarus, but most likely apocryphal – look for Stalin’s line museum here).

The most conspicuous building in this celebratory installation is the actual Joseph Stalin Museum, which occupies a pretty large palace in Stalinist style. The master plan dates back to the final years of Stalin, and its realization was carried out during the 1950s.

The building is interesting from an architectural viewpoint, and features a colonnaded porch giving access to a main entrance hall.

The latter is rather formal, with another colonnade and a perspective leading through a staircase to a mezzanine. In the focus of the perspective you can see another statue of Stalin. Every particular in the architecture here is extremely Soviet – grim, menacing, heavy.

The ticket and toilets can be accessed to the sides of the hall on the ground floor, which acts also as a meeting point for groups – but guided visits are not compulsory, you can tour the museum on your own.

Upon reaching the first floor, you meet two busts of Stalin, and a couple of interesting paintings, portraying the young Josip Vissarionovich Dzugansvili – Stalin’s its real name – as a student talking to his class mates at the seminary of Tbilisi, and later as grown-up, well-established Stalin talking to his collaborators.

The museum is composed of a few big halls. The first rooms retrace Stalin’s personal story, and are based on a mix of documents, original or reproduced, newspapers, paintings and photographs. The latter are often reproductions, often magnified – since when he was not yet famous he mostly appeared in group photographs.

Here you learn about his humble origins, and you can see the photographs of his parents, his early school reports and the first known photographs of Josip as a young boy.

A rather brilliant pupil, he was granted access to the Orthodox seminary in Tbilisi – which back then was called Tiflis – where he moved to attend lectures and to grow to become a priest. Some works of poetry from the time, published on local newspapers in Georgian, are part of the exhibition.

Something went wrong at that time, as he got excessively fascinated with the leftmost socialist theories, spread by several authors including Lenin. A rare naive portrait of his meeting with the principal of the seminary, when he was expelled for his unacceptable and dangerous views, is part of the collection.

This was the beginning of a militancy period, when he became known to the department of internal affairs of the Czar due to open subversive propaganda activities. He worked irregularly, publishing clandestine works in Tbilisi (see about his printing house below), holding open-air meetings in port town Batumi, and so on.

Finally, he was arrested and deported by the Czar to inland Russia. As his fame grew, he was tasked with some role in the apparatus of the clandestine political formations headed by Lenin – the factions against the Czar and even in the socialist area were many, and the intricate civil war that followed the 1917 revolution was also the result of the struggle for power of these opposing forces.

Between internment periods, he started traveling to the capital – St. Petersburg. He also met Lenin in Tampere, Finland, a country politically bound to the Russian empire until 1917. Photographs and documents from the time, a suitcase and models of the houses where Stalin resided can be found in this part. Busts including one of Stalin as a young agitator, pretty rare and likely taken from the few portraits from the time, are also parts of the collection.

Again following a historical timeline, you can find more documents and portraits of a grown-up yet young man of the apparatus. It is well known that Lenin, after the 1917 revolution, saw Stalin as a potential problem for the future of the Party. A copy of Lenin’s ‘testament’, telling his comrades to get rid of Stalin, is on display in the exhibition. As a matter of fact, Lenin’s illness and demise in 1924 started a period of transition.

Stalin, by 1922 general secretary of the communist party of the USSR, fought and won against all other members of the communist party, making his appointment in the government the most powerful. He managed to maintain his role until his death in 1953, reigning as an unopposed tyrant at least since the end of the 1920s, when he prevailed over his most strenuous opponent, Trotzkij.

As he started to gain power, official portraits started to appear, both paintings and photographs. These pieces of the collection are also interesting, for not many portraits of Stalin have survived in official displays, after he was condemned by his political heirs.

Also books from his speeches and prints from his personal history, to be distributed to the general public, are displayed here.

Prominence in the communist party of the USSR gained a special status also to Stalin’s family. His mother had a decent place to live, and his son payed a visit more than once – this is the subject of some portraits. A porcelain set from Stalin’s mother household is on display.

Curious artifacts in this part of the museum include a desk from some communist office of the time of Stalin’s purges.

As a marshal in WWII – the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 as it was known in the USSR – Stalin reached international recognition and world fame. His ability as a general is open to critics, for he managed to kill most of the most experienced staff in the purges of the 1930s, and appointed generals – mostly like Hitler – based on their political attitude. It is questionable whether without substantial help from the then-allies of the Soviet Union (Britain and the US) a victory against Germany could have been reached, despite a disproportionate number of casualties in the rows of the Red Army. However, the final march to Berlin, which gained him control over half of Europe, raised him to the level of a world leader. The exhibition reflects this recognition, with books by Stalin translated in several languages, gifts from generals of the Red Army – including an authentic monstrosity donated to the museum by WWII hero General Zhukov in the 1960s – and many pictures from the war years.

A showcase is dedicated to Stalin’s sons and heirs. He had five sons, from two wives and other women, and his descent is still existent today.

A corner hall hosts a kind of monumental installation, a small Soviet monument not among the best of the kind. Made of lighted reproductions of photographs, it is a kind of recap of Stalin’s triumphs and special moments.

The next hall concludes the climax, and is really unique. It is a circular room padded with black leather panels. At the center of a circular colonnade you can see at the level of the ground one of the few – apparently 12 – original reproductions of Stalin’s head from his death mask.

Thanks to the special installation featuring a strong symmetry and a special lighting, the head is really magnetic.

Stalin died at 75 in March 1953 in undisclosed circumstances, possibly to the hand of somebody in his entourage. Some paintings from his funeral can be seen around the room, together with a model of the mausoleum of Lenin on the Red Square in Moscow, where Stalin was interred for a few years, until removed when finally condemned by his party – note the writing in Cyrillic ‘Lenin – Stalin’ on the mausoleum, later reverted to ‘Lenin’ only.

The next hall is dedicated to international relationships, displayed through photographs, memorabilia and the plenty of gifts Stalin received in his years as a communist dictator.

There are presents from Georgia and other Soviet republics, and from international delegations. The latter were from both the eastern bloc – Eastern Germany, Poland, China – and most strikingly from the West, and even from NATO countries like France and Italy!

Back to the top of the staircase, you get access to one of the highlights of the exhibition. In a final room you find on display the original furniture of Stalin’s office at the Kremlin. There is a desk with an armchair, a sofa, and a set of smaller chairs. Stylistically not very appealing, this furniture is of course of great historical relevance.

Close by, more unique items are on display in two showcases – Stalin’s personal belongings. There are a few cigars – now decomposing to age – some cigarettes, a cigarette box, a ruler, two pipes, a pen, a chessboard, a hand-written message to a friend, and some other trinkets. Finally, there is a military uniform, with boots and coat.

When you have got intoxicated by the Soviet aura of this place, you can finally get out and visit the last item in the park, Stalin’s personal railway car. This was actually used by Stalin, who did not like flying, to travel around the Union and abroad. He went to Teheran and Jalta conferences during WWII in this car.

The car is special in having a bullet-proof armor all around – which produces a weight comparable to that of a Diesel railway engine… – and some special services, like a bathtub, a personal studio and a meeting room.

Stalin’s ‘memorial park’ in Gori is really a one-of-a-kind museum, of exceptional interest for people interested to his period and his historical figure. You may be surprised by the very existence of this place, primarily because of the well-known and heavy responsibility of this man in mass-murders and misconduct as a head of state, and also because it is located in Georgia, a country openly hostile to Russia and its hard political domination, implemented through the institution of the Soviet Union. It is one of the expressions of the contradictory attitude of most peoples touched by the USSR – including Russians – towards that era. It remains a thought-provoking collection of historical value though – gifts from international delegation from the West are a vivid memory of the recognition obtained by this mass-murderer during his lifetime. They are particularly instructive about how propaganda can draw international consensus to the most unthinkable subjects.

Getting there and moving around

Getting to Georgia from the West will be hardly for Gori alone. Despite the nice, well-kept town center, with the castle and several refurbished churches and alleys, and of course the Stalin-related part, there are far more significant places to visit in Georgia, at least if you are coming from far away to this relatively hard-to-reach angle of the world. Yet Gori is located in a convenient position along the major road and railway connecting Tbilisi to Kutaisi and the coast of the Black Sea, which makes for an ideal one-day or even half-day stop.

The town is a good place to sleep, for there are a number of guesthouses and restaurants, and it does not look derelict or unsafe, differently for instance from more prominent Kutaisi. The whole Stalin-themed park, with the birthplace, museum and railway car, is rather compact, and not big, so visiting may take from 1.5 to 3 hours, depending on your level of interest. This is the main attraction in town. Strangely, I could not find an official website – this is strange for most labels are translated also in English, and there is even some merchandise, so the place is run as a modern museum. However, Google or TripAdvisor timetables were correct at least when I visited.

Plenty of public parking space around the museum.

In town there is also a war museum dedicated to the Great Patriotic War (covered here), as well as other non-communist themed attractions.

Joseph Stalin’s Underground Printing House Museum – Tbilisi

This museum was opened in Soviet times in the place of a house where young Stalin spent some time as a political agitator. His main activity related to this place was printing clandestine material.

Access it through modern Soviet buildings, with a hall which unfortunately cannot be visited.

The house is presented inside a small garden. There are two light buildings, a half-timbered house and a smaller hut.

The two are connected by a deep underground passage. This double access to the underground was of great help to evade controls by Czarist authorities. The main underground hall is original.

Possibly intended as a food cellar, it was used to store a 19th century printing machine – made in Augsburg, Germany, as witnessed by the rusty but still readable factory label!

The half-timbered house is apparently a Soviet-era reproduction of the building originally in place. It is a two-rooms house, very similar to Stalin’s birth house in Gori (see above). The two rooms have been furnished with a few berths and tables, to provide an idea of the original look, and with tons of artifacts from Stalin’s and Soviet times.

These include portraits, photographs, books and emblems. There is also a model of a similar clandestine print house in Baku, Azerbaijan.

All in all, this place has a historical significance as Stalin’s early headquarter, and as a Soviet place of pilgrimage. Differently from Stalin-themed park in Gori, it has been basically forgotten – it is kept open by aged volunteers.

Getting there and moving around

The museum is located at the following GPS coordinates – 41.690454, 44.829999. It is located west of Tbilisi city center, at a walking distance from it, but the walk is not recommended for the neighborhood is nothing special. Going by car or taxi is more time-efficient. Public parking on the street available around the block.

There is no official website to my knowledge. Entrance is by cash only, free offer. See Google for opening times, which are mainly in the central hours of the day. You can visit on your own, but one of the local enthusiasts running the museum will likely provide some information, and there is also a basic leaflet in English. Visiting may take about .5 hours.

War Museums in Moscow

People visiting Moscow from abroad usually spend much of the time in the Kremlin and the nearby districts, where they can find many cultural attractions, as well as fashion stores, great hotels and restaurants. Among the features of Russia’s capital city less known to the average tourist are the many monuments and museums dedicated to war history, which in some cases host extremely interesting exhibitions and artifacts from various ages, which would tell the visitor as much as the most prominent attractions in town.

Three I could visit in person are cited in this post, all of them easily reachable with the usual metro rail in a few minutes from the downtown.

The following photographs were taken during a visit to Moscow in September 2015.

Central Museum of the Armed Forces

This is a purely Soviet installation Cold War buffs will definitely like very much… Despite the old-fashioned website – which after all contributes to the picture of a Soviet-state-owned company… – the building was built following WWII, better known in Russia as the Great Patriotic war of  1941-1945. On the outside, besides the entrance there are a missile and a tank. Once inside you immediately find yourself in a large two-levels hall, dominated by a sculpture of Lenin and a huge mosaic wall, plus paintings of battles and other war-themed scenes all around.

From soon after your arrival, you get to grips with the only real ‘problem’ of this installation, where – just like many others touristic sights in Russia – everything – including the escape plan in the event of fire… – is written in Russian only. So, from the viewpoint of history, you’d better go prepared if you want to get the most from this exhibition, for you won’t find any understandable written information, unless obviously you understand some Russian.

There are several halls in the museum, related to historical moments from WWI up to the present day. A first notable room presents a lively reconstruction of a WWI trench fight, with lights and sounds.

The path through the museum follows the course of history, including the revolution, which put an end to WWI for Russia. Then follows WWII. I have to say I never found a collection of Nazi artifacts so rich as the one preserved here in any other place I visited. Literally hundreds of items, from propaganda posters to flags and banners, weapons, medals, papers,… Also present in due quantity are flags and banners of the Soviet Union, as well as Soviet uniforms, weapons and medals from the age of WWII.

Probably the most notable items from the time are the red banner raised on the Reichstag in Berlin – the corresponding b/w photograph is today one of the symbols of the end of WWII – and an original metal eagle with a swastika, probably taken from the Reichstag or the Reichkanzlei. The flag and the eagle are put together in a kind of monumental installation in a large central hall, celebrating the victory of the Soviet Union in the Patriotic War.

An old coat and a hat belonging to Stalin are also part of the exhibition.

Moving on to the Cold War period, a first focus is on the early history of the Soviet atomic program, leading to the detonation of the first nuclear asset in 1949, and to the testing by the Soviets of the largest thermonuclear device ever. Many models and some documentation are available – I could not understand the details, in that occasion I really regretted having no knowledge of Russian! The development of strategic missiles is covered next, including the much connected race to space.

The highlight of this part of the exhibition – at least for western visitors – may be the wreck of Francis Gary Powers’ aircraft, downed in 1959 by a SAM, basically a Soviet invention, during an illegal flight over the territory of the USSR ordered by the CIA. A large part of the fuselage and of the wings can be seen, with technical labels in English. Also part of the ejectable seat and other parts of this Lockheed U-2 are packed together somewhat inelegantly. Some original papers and maps the pilot had with him at the time of the accident are exhibited, together with many photographs. Extremely interesting.

Approaching the last stage of the Soviet Union, scale models, mockups and parts of larger nuclear missiles are presented. Also the war in Afghanistan is mentioned and the more contemporary war actions in Chechnya and other theaters following the collapse of the USSR are outlined and artifacts and photographs showcased. A window from the relic of the ill-fated Kursk submarine remembers this more recent tragedy – together with a monument on the outside to the right of the entrance.

Finally, the backyard is full of interesting items like missiles, gantries, heavy vehicles, tanks and so on. Unfortunately, it started raining heavily at the time of my visit, so photographs were not possible.

All in all, I would say one of the best museums in Europe on the topic of 20th century war history, and probably the best on Russian/Soviet operations in the 20th century. The presentation may be perceived as antiquated for todays standards, nonetheless this may be appreciated by people who are not totally new to this piece of history and who are more interested in seeing valuable and unusual ‘hardware’. I would recommend at least a full hour for the interested visitor, extendable to 1.5 hours rather easily including a detailed visit to the outside exhibition.

Getting there and moving around

The museum is not far north from downtown Moscow, less than .2 miles from Dostoyevskaya metro stop (line 10). The building can be approached walking along ul. Sovetskoy Armii, on the side of the park. The neighborhood is decent and safe, I had no bad feelings visiting alone.

Museum of the Great Patriotic War

Moscow is scattered with monuments remembering the Soviet effort and the victorious outcome of WWII, but the focal point of the celebration is the park at Poklonnaya Hill with the museum of the Great Patriotic War. The park is an extensive area, built around a perspective leading to the top of the hill, where the museum can be found (website here). This is hosted in the curved building behind the very tall spine which can be seen from the distance.

Approaching from the east, from the famous Kutuzovski Prospekt where many important political players of the USSR used to live, including Brezhnev, it is possible to spot first a huge arch, just in the middle of the road, and departing from it the perspective leading to the hill, just to the left of the Prospekt. To the left of the hill as well as beyond the spine there is a park with several smaller installations remembering war actions involving the USSR and more recently Russia, and following WWII. It is also possible to find there an exhibition with cannons, armored vehicles and other warcrafts.

The museum, accessible from the front of the circular building, is intended basically to celebrate the heroism of the Red Army in the war against Germany. It acts as a place of remembrance for the many who never came back, and during my visit there I coincidentally could assist to a ceremony with high ranking military staff celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII.

Inside the most notable items are huge and very vivid dioramas – I must say, very well made, especially for the age – reconstructing some scenes from some especially dramatic battles of the war against Nazi Germany.

In the crypt it is possible to find the very interesting ‘Hall of sorrow’, a more modern monument to the fallen soldiers, with many crystal drops hanging from the ceiling, representing the tears of Mother Russia. These should be really many, with a proportion to the number of soldiers actually lost in the conflict.

The exhibition of artifacts includes a selection of items from various moments and fronts of the war. I could not tour this part freely because of the above mentioned ceremony, but what I could see was interesting. Unfortunately, I could not see the Hall of fame.

Above all, the plan of the whole installation and the Soviet style adopted, not so bombastic in this case, are extremely interesting. Touring the museum may take less than 45 minutes. If you are interested in moving in the park, you may need more. Distances here follow monumental proportions, so monuments are not really close to each other as they might seem on a map.

Getting there and moving around

The area can be reached easily from Park Pobedy metro stop on line 3. The perspective leading to the museum starting from the arch (and from the metro station) is about .6 miles long.

Museum-Panorama ‘The battle of Borodino’

You can find this museum very close to the Museum of the Great Patriotic War described above. The theme of the exhibition is here the battle of Borodino during the war against Napoleon and the French Army.

Borodino is located about 80 miles west of Moscow. There the advancing French Army faced the full power of the Russian Army. Napoleon himself was present and led war operations, while Kutuzov and Bagration, the top-ranking generals of the Tsar, were among the strategists on the Russian side. The battle was a prototypical battle of the time, with wild fire from cannons, infantry and cavalry, all in the arena. It turned out very cruel, taking a huge death toll on both parts. As a matter of fact, the Russian Army, which had constantly retreated avoiding the contact with the French until that great battle, continued back towards Moscow, which was finally abandoned and set on fire as Napoleon’s Army was reaching it. On one side, the Russians failed to stop the French at Borodino, on the other they set for the French a deadly trap – the French did not quit chasing the Russians until the winter of 1812 finally struck when they were infinitely far from home with no active supply lines, nor food nor resupply storages at hand. The season killed basically 9 out of 10 on the French side, triggering the end of Napoleon’s dreams of power.

The museum was recently refurbished in a modern key, with a detailed description of some moments of the battle on wide screens and interactive panels – again, unfortunately all in Russian. Uniforms, weapons and artifacts add to the visit, but the highlight here is the beautiful panorama painting. This is similar to the cyclorama in Gettysburg, PA, and it is a more than 300 ft long circular painting vividly depicting some important moments in the battle of Borodino. As you can learn from the website, the painting was made in 1912 (before the Soviets) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the battle. The building was renovated in 1962.

The visit may not take much, especially if you are not interested in the war against Napoleon, but I would suggest going there even only for the uniqueness of the installation as well as  for its artistic significance. In any case, the visit may not take more than 45 minutes, especially if you don’t understand Russian.

Right behind the museum it is possible to see the wooden hut where Kutuzov and his staff discussed and decided for the destruction of Moscow in order to jeopardize the plans of the French to find a shelter there for the approaching winter season.

Getting there and moving around

The museum can be reached easily from Park Pobedy metro stop on line 3, like the Museum of the Great Patriotic War. From the metro stop you can walk west on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, and you will soon find the museum on the left (northern) side of the road, about .2 miles from the station.