Sixty-Nine Years of Solitude, circa 1922-1991

It is nearly impossible to venture anywhere in Georgia without being reminded of its Soviet history. Among the crumbling classical facades and in between the starkly modern glass spectacles (soon to be joined by two Trump Towers) stand the ominous facades of abandoned communist headquarters saturated in Soviet Realism; the Russian mutters of older men as you pass them on the streets tell of a time when the Georgian language was degraded; even the beauty of the countryside is tainted with aboveground gas pipes of the Soviet energy system lining dirt roads in rusted reds and blues. Though one may forget what this country was like twenty years ago while eating a burger at the Marriot or purchasing French imported wine at the local food store, reflections of the past inevitably lurk behind every city corner. This is perhaps most prominent in a small, infamous city an hour west of Tbilisi called Gori- the hometown of Josef Stalin. I escaped my Marshuka (a white minivan converted into a shared taxi) ride squished in between two countrymen Monday morning into the sleet of Stalin Ave. The town itself is like any of median size in Georgia: there is a main center filled with forgettable 1960s architecture and dangerously insane drivers, and then the residential area sprawls out into the countryside until it is swallowed by the distant mountains. At the end of Stalin Ave sits a massive building that both invites passerbyers to explore and repels them with its threatening facade. Bundling up a bit tighter, I descended the stairs and quickly approached the Stalin Museum.

(yes, that is me sitting at Stalin's desk)

The interior was just as dark and cold as the exterior, with a grandiose entrance hall adorned with both portraits of Stalin and an elegant marble statue that stood erect in the center looking down upon visitors as they entered. Our guide swept us up the grand staircase and into the exhibition rooms, quickly running through the personal history of the once leader of this country through photographs, replicas, and primary documents ranging from letters of his youth to correspondence with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. We learned of the humble beginnings of Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili (only later taking on his pen name Stalin, meaning steel) in this small Georgian village, born to an impoverished cobbler and his wife, his rise to power within Georgia, his family life, and his wondrous role in World War II in defeating Nazi Germany. We visited the one room home in which he was born and sat in his personal train compartment all while learning of a leader this town admired perchance a bit too much. Throughout our tour, there was no mention of murders, gulags, or forced resettlement as we winded through the halls and finished in an eerily lit room where his death mask was illuminated from above. In fact, the only negative images in this museum were a few pictures taken during the 2008 Russian invasion of Gori. Despite what the world thinks of the notorious Soviet dictator, within this city, or perhaps within these walls, he is hailed as a glorious ruler to what I can only assume are foreign crowds as uncomfortable as me and my companion. 

Leaving Stalin’s neatly pressed uniform and still set desk behind, we hailed a taxi to take us to Uplistsikhe, a cave city first constructed during the Early Iron Age. Though our guide’s English was considerably lacking and the wind nearly took me flying off the edge at several points, the site was breathtaking. The uniqueness of the ancient amphitheatre, wine storage rooms, sacrificial alter, and king’s palace combining both Turkish and Persian (and later Greek) influences was incredible. The side of the mountain was crisscrossed with streets and sewage trenches that once carried pipes of clean water to homes. There are still signs of the importance of Pagenism to this ancient civilization littered on the eroded walls and archways, and later Christian influences dating to the 4th Century CE. Climbing higher and higher into the darkening sky, we eventually reached the highest point and began our journey back down the rocky path. Unfortunately, our taxi had abandoned us in our travels and we soon found ourselves following a dog as our guide down the meandering roads of the Georgian countryside, where our only company was the occasional farmer and his cows or a Sheppard dog that our guide valiantly protected us from. After two hours, we eventually flagged down a bus dating from the 1960s that took us back into Gori for fifty cents. The walk, nonetheless, afforded us both magnificent views of lushes farmland and time to reflect on our previous weekend travels. 

On Saturday I had ventured into the outskirts of Tbilisi to find its botanical gardens. Though warmer weather in the weeks to come will undeniably paint the park with a vibrant, fresh pallet the hike was still filled with interesting plants, forgotten fortresses, scenic outlooks, and soothing waterfalls; after living in a city for these past few weeks, the quiet and beauty of disappearing into nature for a few hours of serenity was almost as relaxing as my pit stop on the way home. Tbilisi, founded in the 10th Century, was declared Georgia’s new capital by King Vakhtang Gorgasali when he stumbled upon the miraculous ‘hot waters that boiled without fire.’ Literally meaning warm water, Tbilisi has been famous for its hot springs and sulphur baths for centuries, from the writings of Marco Polo to President Bush’s visit to the republic only a few years ago. As I sat in the steaming water examining the oriental influences of the deep blue mosaics, I thought of how amazing it was that the importance and tradition of public baths had withstood the test of time like so many other rich traditions in this gem tucked away in the Caucuses.  


The following day I traveled down the Mtkvari River to the old capital of Georgia pre-dating Tbilisi, Mtskheta. The sun shining down on the wide boulevard and smiling faces of locals stood in severe contrast to my trip to Gori. Covering my head as I walked into the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, I was taken by surprise (foolishly seeing as it was Sunday morning) to stumble upon mass. Taking my place among the standing congregation, I took in the brilliance of what surrounded me. The light tumbled in effortlessly from the narrow stone windows, falling in blades across the dusty air. The walls and large dome were covered with beautiful frescos and tapestries telling stories of saints and the local story of Christ’s coat, which laid somewhere beneath my feet. The choir, unseen behind a screen, sung angelically in five part harmonies that still make me smile at its memory, and many of the men and women stood piously with candles in their hands. Altogether, the scene resembled an inspiring renaissance painting displayed in some art history book back in my room. Coming back to reality over a lunch of beans and bread (their specialty), I then visited the archaeological museum and thereafter the burial site archaeologists had collected most of their findings from. The museum itself, like all others I have visited here, made me cringe at the condition its artifacts survived in, but the olden wine jugs and ancient caskets provided me with an interesting comparison to how people lived in Mtskheta versus Uplistsikhe. 


My long weekend came to a close with a phone interview with a human rights organization in Morocco for a research position this summer. As our conversation turned from migration in North Africa to Georgia’s transition to a democracy, my interviewer asked me what I thought of my new home’s political and economic reforms, and if the same reforms are possible for his country in areas like women’s rights. Living in a country like the United States that has been democratic from its birth, it is easy to overlook the difficulties of democratization. My work here focuses on researching indicators of how free Georgia is and charts its future potential. Here too, like the communist buildings that penetrate the new in Tbilisi, and like the atmosphere that still lingers in Stalin’s hometown, the country’s Soviet past can be spotted in between the lines of reports and evaluations. Thinking back to what Georgia embodied twenty years ago, the liberal reformations that it has undergone since the Rose Revolution are stunning, even if they are still traveling the road towards a true and lasting democracy. The differences between Georgia’s path towards freedom and that of countries like Tunisia and Egypt are vast, but the two share a common thread. Thinking of the civil society leaders I met with a few weeks ago and the similar faces of civilian leaders on the broadcasts of our generation’s cyber revolutions, I responded to my interview, a man who suddenly seemed more similar to Egyptians and Georgians that I had thought. Avec les hommes comme vous, bien sur. With people like you, of course.