October 02, 2004

Georgia's Favourite Son

Gori, Georgia

Georgia has a strange fascination with Stalin, their most famous export. There is apparently a statue still somewhere in the city of Telavi, I shared my room in my Tbilisi guesthouse with a huge poster of the man, and from the dining room wall in our Kazbegi guesthouse he again loomed large.

This reverence reaches its pinnacle in the city of Gori. Stalin's birthplace and home for his first fifteen years. It features a huge statue of Stalin standing proud before the local parliament and his childhood home has been enshrined beneath a huge museum dedicated to Gori's favourite son.

The museum is mostly a collection of photos. I walk through the large rooms alone in the semi-darkness. No-one is there to turn the lights on. Stalin looks down in all his guises: revolutionary, nation builder, war leader, family man. Strangely no mention of gulags or purges.

I finally come to a small room, shrine almost, containing his death mask. My first reaction was to think how small it looked. After all the photos he seemed so much larger than life yet he was just a man. As I stood there in the dim light it seemed remarkable that one could have so much power over many. That one man could hold the life and death of millions in his hands. Looking at the small peaceful face it just did not seem possible.

The whole place was strangely moving. I guess I have not been before to a museum to such a man, that affected so many others so greatly and so terribly. Most leaders of his ilk never get a museum after death. Stalin is the strange exception.

Posted by David at October 2, 2004 02:08 AM