Into the lair of the beast

Taking my puppets for a walk
Where did he go?
Puppy
Let me sit right here
CCCP
Inside the Stalin museum
Stalin
Stalin's house's mausoleum
Three
1941 - 1945
How high?
One day I'll #fly away
#street #seller in #gori
Metal Warriors
#stalin, in #gori
#Gori #train #station

It was the smartass Meshrop Martots (spellings of his name, ironically, differ) just over 1600 years ago, who came up with the Georgian and Armenian alphabets. Somewhat based on Greek, but mostly his own invention, tourists from all corners of the world still struggle when coming to the Caucasus. The only advantage being that the alphabets are somewhat congruous with greek and Latin, meaning that most letters in both the Armenian and Georgian alphabets phonetically represent letters that exist in the Latin alphabet.

However, it also means its not always easy to get around using public transport, where destinations are typically only listed in the local script, the occasional Russian alternatives being a welcome change.

But, still, I managed to get to Gori, a village not too far from Tbilisi and home to the infamous Stalin museum. A bit of a must to visit, the museum has relatively little to offer in the little town that, at best, can be described as sleepy.
Though that might change. Here, too, as in Tbilisi, half the buildings appeared to be in the process of being refurbished.

The best aspect of the museum is Stalin's birth house, untouched, in a away covered by its own mausoleum, with the neighborhood that once surrounded it having been bulldozed, the old home now being the eccentric center of town.

On the up, there now is limited attention in the museum for Stalin's (huge) dark side. Apparently, upto a few years ago, the museum still only saw the man in a purely positive light. Not so now. Though the guide, I suspect, still mostly tells the same story, in almost the language of your choice, specifically three large banners, in three languages, draw attention to the millions of deaths Stalin was primarily, if not solely, responsible for.
also, the huge Stalin statue in front of the museum has 'mysteriously' disappeared.

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