Visiting Stalin’s birthplace – in Gori, Georgia

Many years ago, I remember reading a biography of Joseph Stalin. I was living in Prague and struggling with the grammar of that difficult Slavic language. Although I knew Stalin was originally from Georgia and that Georgian is an isolated language and not Slavic, until that biography, I did not know that Stalin never perfected Russian grammar.

According to that biography, Stalin never mastered the difficult Slavic declensions. He simply mumbled the ends of adjectives and nouns to avoid having to select the proper declension, thereby requiring a transformation of the word.

That was a huge revelation/confidence boost for me. After all, I had no aspirations to become a bloody dictator of (then) Czechoslovakia, I just wanted those seven cases to come somewhat naturally when I spoke Czech.

When I was in Georgia this past summer, I made time to visit the birthplace of one of history’s most evil and brutal dictators – Iosif Vissationvich Dzhugashvili (1878-1953), more commonly known as Joseph Stalin.

Stalin was born to a modest family in Gori, Georgia, west of the capital of Tblisi, which was, at the time, under control of the Russian Empire.

As a young man, Stalin (mindbogglingly) studied in the Theological Seminary of Tblisi before perfecting bank robberies and other crimes to financially support the Bolshevik movement and the October Revolution of 1917.

In Gori, you can see his modest, mud and brick birth home and a bombastic museum dedicated to his (bloody) legacy, founded in 1957.

They have plenty of memorabilia of his early days, including as a seminary student, a replica of his Kremlin office and a bronze copy of his death mask.

Yes, it’s weird to go to a museum dedicated to the man who masterminded so much death and suffering, but as long as we have politicians thinking the next time we “try out communism”, it will turn out so much better, it’s an important historical reminder. One that deserves its lofty spot on the ash heap of history.

The town itself is pleasant and it’s worth climbing up to the castle ruins for impressive views. Definitely worth a visit on your next trip to Georgia.