Stalin Museum in Gori: A Disturbing Experience

While traveling through Georgia, we stopped at the Stalin State Museum in Gori, the dictator's hometown. We were initially stunned to learn that such a museum even existed, but we decided to visit out of historical curiosity.

The museum complex, opened in 1957, consists of a two-story exhibition building with six halls, Stalin's memorial house where he was born, and his personal railway carriage. The building is grand, faced with Eclar stone, featuring ornate pillars and red marble in the vestibule - all designed to convey importance and reverence.

What we found most disturbing was how the museum essentially glorifies Stalin while ignoring the horrific reality of his regime. The six exhibition halls present visitors with a carefully curated narrative of Stalin's life and political career, complete with personal artifacts, photographs, and gifts he received from world leaders. The exhibits are primarily labeled in Georgian and Russian, with some English translations available. His personal railway carriage, preserved in its original condition, is displayed as a holy relic.

Conspicuously missing from most of the museum is any substantial acknowledgment of the millions who died under Stalin's rule - the victims of forced collectivization and resulting famines, the Great Purge, the Gulag system, antisemitic campaigns, and political executions. Only one small room added in 2010 mentions the repressions; even this feels like an afterthought.

Witnessing this form of historical revisionism in the 21st century was genuinely bizarre. While Stalin's legacy is understandably complex for Georgians (he remains their most famous countryman despite his atrocities), the museum's approach of hero worship without proper historical context is deeply troubling.

The experience left us wondering about the ethics of such a place. Rather than serving as a thoughtful examination of a controversial historical figure and the dangers of totalitarianism, the museum instead feels like a shrine to one of history's most brutal dictators.

This stop on our Georgian journey was undoubtedly thought-provoking, though not in the way the museum's creators likely intended.