Visit to Georgia (4): Gori
Another day in Georgia and another set of fascinating experiences.
Five of us – Silvia and I plus Jim, Leslie and David – hired a car to take us to Gori. This is about 80 km (50 miles) north-west of Tbilisi and around an hour’s drive if (as proved to be the case) your driver is crazy in terms of both speed and manoeuvrability. Gori is known for one thing: it was the birthplace in 1879 of one Josef Djugashvili, better known as Stalin (Man of Steel), and his 17 metre tall stature dominated the main square until as recently as 2010.
In 1957 (note: a year after Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin), a large museum was opened in Gori in his honour and, in spite of a minor update in 1979 and an attempt to close it in 1989, it remains open, essentially unchanged in its displays and messages. It must be unique in the world.
We spent an hour and half there, tagging on to first one, and then another, fast-talking English-speaking guide who acknowledged that the place needs a make-over to tell more of the reality of Stalin’s life and crimes – but nobody knows when this will happen.
Meanwhile the museum is a large Italianate building – plus his birth place and his wartime railway carriage – which, as well as being utterly selective in its messaging, is very selective in its slices of history, focussing especially on Stalin’s early years, wartime conferences, and 70th birthday. It is full of photographs, paintings, statues, busts and other iconography commemorating – indeed venerating – this brutal dictator and mass murderer, so visiting is a memorable, if surreal, experience.
Back in Tbilisi, we had a light lunch at a French cafe. All of us except David ordered from the menu but David wanted the lunch special. In an act that reminded us that this was recently a communist country, the waitress (who was too young to remember communism) told him that he was too late for the lunch special. David pointed out that it was a mere two minutes past the deadline and used all his Israeli charm to persuade her to change her mind.
For Jews, it was Shabbat and several of our party went to the Tbilisi Great Synagogue where the women had to go behind a screen. Silvia and I went along for the experience – and to cleanse ourselves from the stains of Stalinism – but we didn’t understand a thing. The evening meal with all the group involved a succession of toasts in the best Georgian tradition.