Tbilisi Tales - Gori (5/2/05)

Occasional Tales from our Life in the Republic of Georgia

Back in May we took a day trip to Gori, which is a medium-size town about one hour from Tbilisi. Gori is best know as the hometown of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who was born Ioseb Jughashvili in Gori in 1879. While considered a brutal dictator by most Georgians today, the Stalin Museum in Gori is silent on the mass purges and deportations carried out under Stalin's regime. There is no mention of the Gulag, but the museum does offer an interesting, if one-sided, look into a communist world that was effectively cut off from the western world for most of the last century. Besides the Stalin museum, Gori also has an impressive medieval fortress and a tidy town square.


Town park with Stalin Museum tower in the background


Statue of Ioseb Jughashvili -- "Joseph Stalin"


Stalin's surprisingly well-preserved childhood home


The medieval fortress of Goristsikhe overlooking Gori


Georgian monument looking west...