The Gori Details (Destination: Gori, Georgia)

After saying goodbye to the people from the tour that were up for an early breakfast, I headed to the subway station to go to the stop where the mini-buses (matruskys) depart for various towns in western Georgia. It’s helpful to read a Georgia travel guide to learn more about public transportation.

I easily found the matrusky that was headed to Gori, but it was empty and someone said it wasn’t departing for about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, a taxi driver was trying to convince me to hire him for the day to take me to Gori as well as a cave city that was near Gori. I had remembered reading about the cave city and was interested but had seen that it was quite difficult to get to unless you hired a taxi. So, after he lowered the price to 60 lari (less than $40), I decided to take the taxi.

He drove me via the freeway to the town of Gori. Gori was the boyhood home of Joseph Stalin and location of the Stalin Museum. First, I looked around the large marble museum, which was built by the Soviets when Georgia was part of the USSR.

Next, you get to go outside where the one room brick house that was rented by Joseph’s parents when he was a boy. All the other houses have been torn down but this one has been preserved and a protective structure has been built around it.

The last stop is the luxury railway carriage that took Stalin to the Yalta Convention. There was even a full bathroom on the car with a huge bathtub and toilet. To think on this trip, I’ve now seen toilets used by both Joseph Stalin and the Dahli Lama!

My last stop in Gori was the crusader statues and hill for a view of Stalin’s Georgian city.

Next, we drove to the cave city of Uplistsikhe. The carved buildings looked like there were out of the Flintstones. At one point, there were 20,000 people in this city first built over 3,000 years ago. There were temples that were originally pagan and later converted to Christianity. This was another city that had been invaded by Genghis Khan. It’s amazing the number of cities we’ve seen on this trip that was in the Mongol invasion. The exit was thru a very long tunnel carved in the sandstone in ancient days.

The taxi returned to Tbilisi via the scenic route. The taxi driver kept on trying to convince me to stop at other monasteries, probably for additional cost, but I was a bit tired and wanted to return to Tbilisi. I looked around the market at the Didube train station and bought a Georgian Snickers (walnuts, grape juice, and flour snack) and bought a bag that I can use as a carry on to carry my souvenirs home. I took the metro subway back to town and walked down Rustaveli street towards old town again. I ran into some more Samoan rugby players and asked there were and when the game and how to get tickets. They said they get some free tickets and would leave one for me at the Radisson tomorrow (we’ll see if they remember). The stores on Rustavelli are starting to put out their Christmas decorations.

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