Gori, Stalin, and the minibus

Heading to Gori meant figuring out how to get there, exactly. We didn't want to take a group tour, and we didn't want to get scammed. The idea of booking an all-day taxi like we did in Armenia didn't really work; the driver just took us to the bus station. So we took a bus.

The main bus station in Hannover is a very orderly and sanitary affair, with numbered gates where well-marked buses leave right on schedule. In Tbilisi, minibuses and taxis cram in as drivers shout out their destinations and passengers haggle for better prices. The minibuses sometimes have signs to state their destinations, but,of course, those signs are written in Georgian. Somehow we got pointed toward the bus to Gori. No, there were no chickens on board. And nobody smelled bad, either. It was crowded and Brian's knees jammed up against the seat in front of him, but otherwise the minibus worked fine. It took us directly to the Stalin museum for less than $1.50 per person.

Gori is the hometown of Joszef Stalin, and its main claim to fame. It's strange to go to a museum that honors an evil dictator responsible for the deaths of millions. It sounded so strange and awful that we had to go see how it's all done. The museum itself was a little ragged, kind of dark and cold with worn carpets and accumulated dust. The exhibits are overwhelmingly positive... let's just say that there is some information missing. The strangest items in the place are Stalin's death mask and the cottage where he was born, which stands outside the museum under a stained glass roof decorated with the hammer and sickle. You can read more about Gori and the museum in this article.

Inside the museum

Stalin's childhood home

Why do the Georgians have a museum for Stalin, but the Germans wouldn't dream of building one to honor Hitler? Maybe because Stalin's government succeeded.

There was actually a movement led by the national culture minister to transform the institution into a museum of Russian aggression. For a while, a banner hung outside the museum saying "This museum is a falsification of history. It is a typical example of Soviet propaganda and it attempts to legitimize the bloodiest regime in history." But the locals took it down and voted down the idea of changing the museum's purpose.

Thoroughly creeped out by it all, we left the museum and found a taxi driver to take us to the cave city.