Gulags? What gulags? (Gori)

Member Name: fizzywizzy

Product:	Gori
Date:	21/12/06 (167 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A taste of the real Georgia; an odd place

Disadvantages: People here love Stalin; an odd place

Last week I read a newspaper article in which an Ipswich woman said that her hometown would now be remembered as the place where the five prostitutes were murdered. An awful thought, but true.

Imagine if the only claim to fame of your town was that it was the birthplace of one Josef Stalin, one of the twentieth century's most notorious and controversial figures, a man alleged to have sent millions of citizens of the Soviet Union to their death. The town is Gori, a fairly non-descript about an hours drive from the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

On the surface, Gori looks like any other provincial Georgian town; life centres around a bustling market where locals sell whatever they can find, grow or make in order to survive. In the evenings everyone strolls around the town's small main square and on a Sunday afternoon everyone climbs the town's only hill, walks around the ruined citadel and then walks back down again.

Gori is a little different, though; it really does have an eerie feel to it. The museum devoted to the life and, ahem, work of Stalin was almost next door to our hotel, at one end of the square. Right in front of it is the relocated tiny childhood home of Stalin - you can't go in but you can look through the windows. Outside it is stationed Stalin's personal armoured train carriage. Further down the main street named after Stalin, of course, is the Council building or Soviet. In front of it stands a huge statue of Stalin himself. Everywhere else in Georgia and the Soviet Union, the statues of Stalin have disappeared; some have been melted down, others are rusting in sheds and yards. Only in Gori does one stand proud, watching over this curious town.

GETTING TO GORI

We arrived by bus from Tbilisi; at only an hour from the capital we thought there would be plenty of buses bound for Gori but we were bundled into a minivan thinking we were Gori bound and later unceremoniously dumped at a motorway junction and left to find our own way into the town. Luckily a line of taxis were waiting at the junction and we commandeered one to take us into town. It was a small Lada, held together by rust and gaffer tape; the tiny boot couldn't contain two rucksacks so we drove with the boot flying open.

On arrival in town the driver made sure he drove past the key landmarks ("Stalin Museum, very good", "Stalin statue, very good", "Stalin train, very good") before depositing us in front of the Hotel Tourist, a former state hotel , now undergoing a slow redevelopment. The vast reception bore all the signs of faded grandeur; a sweeping staircase with wobbly balusters, a chandelier missing half of its bulbs and the remains of a once beautiful fresco of angels, sadly most of the plaster had long since fallen off the walls.

A matronly but fun receptionist checked us in; on the threadbare sofa behind her desk was a bottle of vodka and some rolled up blankets. She showed us up the stairs to the first floor; here there was a vast landing with sofas, side tables and a teeny bar. The bar never opened while we were there. She flung open the door of room number one. We were surprised to find a renovated and simple yet tasteful room. Looking back I wondered if this was the only room so far renovated. We saw no evidence of any other guests over the next three days.

For the people of Gori one of the town's highlights must surely be a visit to the ATM; a vague queuing system, based on as many people as possible crowding around the machine, exists and one man is appointed "ATM operator". He takes bank cards off people - these are passed through the throng to the front of the "queue" - and the owner of each one shouts out his or her PIN number. The money is withdrawn and the card and cash returned to the owner. We were allowed to carry out our own transaction though the "ATM operator" clearly doubted our ability to use the technology independently.

SPENDING YOUR CASH

Admittedly, once you have got your cash there's not much to spend it on. Gori has a few eating and drinking places, but it's pretty limited. On our first evening we ate at a small restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet and had a wonderful time. There is no menu but the cook invited us into the kitchen to see what ingredients she had available and we went back to the table to wait. The result was a wonderful lamb stew with green plums that we ate with potatoes, a tasty salad and khachapuri (a Georgian cheese pastry), washed down with Georgian wine.

The following evening we tried to find something other than fries or khachapuri and ended up in a pizza joint - another place without a menu. When we asked about a vegetarian pizza the waitress shook he head. We asked for just cheese and she shook her head again. We settle for a beer but when the waitress brought the beers she brought with her a tray of vegetables and asked us to point to the ones we wanted. The resulting pizza was the strangest I've ever had (wild mushrooms, root vegetables and cheddar cheese) but probably the most memorable too.

The young people of Gori have their own place to hang out; a café-bar where the lights are so dim you can tell whether they've been switched on or not. Here you can eat the saltiest fries ever or order a mound of fresh strawberries; strawberries are the order of the day everywhere in Gori and they are wonderfully juicy and tasty.

There isn't really anything you might want to buy in Gori; it's a pretty poor place so people try to make do and only really buy new things when they really need to. The market is fascinating, however, and shouldn't be missed. Old ladies come in by bus from outlying villages, hauling old Coke bottles full of goats milk or buckets of soft homemade cheese. Others sell papers of roasted sunflower seeds that are the perfect snack and sold on every street corner. You don't have to rent a stall, you can set up anywhere and start to sell. If you feel daring, through some coins into a street lottery game - these square towers have slots on each side and you can win as much as a whole Pound if your number is a jackpot winner!


STALIN'S GORI

Did you know Stalin was set to become a priest? Or that in his youth he would write romantic poetry? You can learn all these things at the Stalin Museum - providing you can understand Georgian; almost all the captions on exhibits are in Georgian and a few are in Russian too. None of the staff speak English but this doesn't stop them trying to point things out to you. A basic knowledge of Soviet history is valuable but you'll still struggle to get much out of the experience. One of the most accessible and interesting parts of the museum is two rooms filled with gifts presented to Stalin by the various Soviet Socialist Republics and other nations around the world - some clogs from the Netherlands, porcelain from China, cigars from Cuba and so on. The final room is almost completely dark and the guide will switch on a light revealing Stalin's deathmask. It is the most bizarre and surreal experience, heightened by the guides demands of "Photo, photo" as she points at the mask.

The entry charge is, thankfully, only the equivalent of about £1.50 and so you can't feel too cheated; it would be fantastic however if some of the captions could be displayed in English - the town has a university with a foreign languages department that I am sure would be willing to help. One other point about the museum is that there are no references at all to anything negative about Stalin; throughout, the common theme is to praise his "achievements" in the industrialization, and collectivization of the Soviet Union as well as the defeat of the Axis Powers in the Second World War. When one considers the museums devoted to remembering the victims of the holocaust in Germany, it is surprising that the Georgian government has not seized the opportunity to demonstrate an appreciation of the horrors of the past and the use them as a lesson for future generations. Gori can not pretend that Stalin was not born there, but the museum could be exploited better as an educational tool.

GORI WITHOUT STALIN

Probably the most visited site in the area is Uplistsikhe, a first millennium BC cave city which was unearthed in 1957 and is now a protected site. It is on one of the main trade routes of its time and there is evidence that the people who lived here had connections through trade with Armenia, Iran, Asia Minor and Greece. The best way to visit is to take a taxi from town and negotiate a price with the driver to take you there and wait. When you get there you pay the small admission fee and then you'll be approached by a local unofficial guide; there are no official guides but these local people know all about the site and offer a fascinating background knowledge to help you get the most out of your visit. We paid our guide about $10.00 US and it was worth every penny. He brought the place to life, telling us not just about the history of the place and putting it into context, but pointing out animals and birds and plants, but explaining about the geographical position of the city and the composition of the land around.

WOULD I RECOMMEND GORI TO TOURISTS?
If you like adventure, are open-minded and appreciate the absurd, you'll probably like Gori. However it's not for everyone and you do have to be independent and confident traveler to get the most out of a visit. When we took a taxi to the bus station in Tbilisi the driver offered to drive us to Gori, wait for us to see the museum and bring us back to Tbilisi that would have been an easy and feasible way of doing things. However, I would not have missed the cave city for anything - it just blew away any expectations I had for what it might be like. If you ever go to Georgia you really shouldn't miss this site. By doing a bit of research on line you may be able to contact one of the growing number of local people hoping to set up there own independent travel companies, offering accommodation with local families and the services of a guide and driver while in the area and this would be a good way for less confident travelers to see this region.

The Stalin connection was the main reason I wanted to see Gori but it does cast an uneasy shadow over the town and it does make you uncomfortable when the locals all want you to appreciate the statue and museum as if he was some kind of hero. More than any other place I visited in Georgia, Gori gave me an insight into life for ordinary Georgians. Gori has much tourism potential but it doesn't hide behind a façade like some cities do, hiding poverty away so the tourists don't see it. It won't be long before someone realizes the potential in and around Gori. It is ripe for investment and the many young English speakers who hang around the café with little do will be able to use their skills and make a decent living. Perhaps then Gori will be able to start afresh, casting over the dark mantle of Stalin.


Take a look at this website for some super photographs of Gori and Uplistsikhe

http://www.galenfrysinger.com/gori,_georgia.htm

Summary: Imagine the oddest place you can....