Sept 24 - Do some research and come up with a plan for a day trip to Gori. Tours are offered from Tbilisi, but they all run $50-$100 for the three of us, which seems like a lot considering Gori is on the main road.
First stage of the trip is to take the metro from Liberty Square to an area in the north of Tbilisi called Didube.
This massive pillar adorns the center of Liberty Square. Around it is a five-lane wide road, I guess to lend gravity to the monument. It takes a while just to get around the thing and find the metro entrance.
Next is a minibus at the Didube bus station. Not immediately obvious where the bus station is outside the metro, as it is a huge covered market. The taxi touts don’t want to tell us, since their racket is getting tourists in their cars. Fortunately, there is one helpful soul in a state transport service jacket who explains where to go. It is $5 for the three of us, squished into a minivan for the hour ride. Here I really can smell the spices, it is in people’s clothing and hair, to a degree I only experienced last in Sarajevo.
Get a brief view of Jvari Monastery along the road. This church is an example of the early Orthodox Church type, built is about 600 CE.
Gori is known really for just one thing: the birthplace of Joseph Stalin (1878-1953). Lonely Planet claims that the fame of Stalin here extends only to the fact that his family is from there, and that this fame now brings the tourist dollar. Strolling around the complex dedicated to him, however, it seems a rather unbalanced perspective on one of the harshest, tyrannical leaders in modern history.
The museum and plaza for Stalin is of course in the city center.
The humble childhood home of J. Stalin, now covered by a fancy roof and surrounded by marble pillars. All of this I’m sure was done the moment he took control of the Soviet government.
The Stalin Museum! They do acknowledge some of the negative things he did in a ground floor section, but the vast majority of the rooms basically document his life from a rebellious boy to his more ‘glorious’ achievements as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Odette is not impressed with his statue. Not many of these around anymore.
A recreation of one of his humble offices.
All the Stalin memories you could want, for a price.
A long plaza walkway leads south from the museum.
One of the several fountains.
Fortunately, Gori is really quiet today and we are not hassled about tours like we are in Tbilisi. We descend on an taxi driver just minding his own business and propose he take us to Uplistsikhe, about 10 km east.
Uplistsikhe is one of the earliest known inhabited sites in Georgia. The area, on the north bank of the Mtkvari River, is a sequence of soft sandstones that were carved into to create habitable caves and some more complex structures. It was an important town for probably a millennia.
Holes carved into the mid-portion of this cliff are probably holders for wooden poles, to form a roof. The upper portion of the cliff is a wall of much later construction.
These deep cylindrical pits were everywhere. Many were dedicated to the collection of wine. A small hole in the side comes from a rectangular pit behind where grapes were stomped, allowing the juice to flow in and be captured here.
These rooms were excavated using metal shovels and other tools, all by hand.
This is called the Room of Queen Tamar.
On some of the larger chambers, a lot of work has gone into the ceiling art.
Some graffiti, mostly in Cyrillic.
A view down to the Mtkvari River.
There is one newer structure on site, a small church.
The sort of geologic terrain that encouraged early people to carve into the rock and make homes here. There are similar examples in central Türkiye.
Get tired of the constant rain, so back to Gori.
Gori Fortress, which would have been a good hike, but with the heavy rain we called off the expedition.
There was a quiet restaurant near the fortress where we stopped for late lunch. We sat under a drippy pop-up and had a good meal of local food.
When Janet asked for lemonade, this is what she got. It is a grape drink, with tarragon.
The Holy Archangels Cathedral in Gori.
Near the cathedral and fortress was the Memorial of Georgian Warrior Heroes. Each of the statues had some body part missing. These were originally placed at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Tbilisi in 1985 but were transferred here.
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