The Great Patriotic War Museum and War Memorial – Gori

Posted on 15/08/2024 by Michael

Gori Great Patriotic War Museum – 01

The Great Patriotic War Museum and War memorial – Gori

The Museum

This is quite a small museum and considering the huge numbers of people – especially during the tourist season – who go to Gori for the Stalin Museum (only a couple of hundred metres up the road) doesn’t get many visitors at all.

For many of those who do go there it might appear somewhat underwhelming as it doesn’t contain a lot of artefacts. However, I think that’s the ‘problem’ of the visitor not the museum – but also a ‘problem’ of which I myself am guilty.

War museums in the west – or certainly in the UK – are devoted to the instruments of war, the weapons that have been used through the ages as technology makes the task of killing someone ‘easier’ and more sophisticated. Yes, there will be exhibitions, normally ‘special’ ones that complement/supplement the permanent display, that place a greater emphasis on those who were fighting or were caught up in the conflict but the norm is to display what does the killing.

I think I’ve come to understand – and it took the visit to a number of museums in various part of what was the Soviet Union – that Soviet museums of the Great Patriotic War were primarily dedicated to those who fought and died. The museums were more like memorials to the dead than celebrations of what was used to kill them.

Although the museum in Gori is small this is even more evident in a couple of the larger museums I have visited recently – the first being the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow and the second the Museum to the Battle of Stalingrad in Stalingrad/Volgograd. Both those museums have military equipment on show but the vast majority of the items on display are much more personal, items that the soldiers and civilians carried as well as many photographs of those who fought and died.

At the heart of both those museums is a virtual shrine to those who gave their lives for the Soviet Motherland to which visiting groups of school children, military personnel – as well as many other Russian visitors – treat as a sort of pilgrimage to pay homage and thanks to those who died in the fight against Nazism. Even though the Soviet Union collapsed many years ago the Russian people still understand that the Great Patriotic War was an ‘existential’ (a word that has probably become overused in recent times) struggle for the country. Defeat wouldn’t have just meant losing the war, it would have resulted in the end of the Russian people as a nation.

And the museum in Gori mirrors that but on a much smaller scale. When it comes to exhibits there more in the way of photographs, of scenes from the various battle fronts but also of Georgians (and, I must assume, those from Gori and the surrounding area) who died in the war. Although there was no fighting on the territory of Georgia as such around 350,000 Georgians lost their lives on other fronts and in other battles against the Nazis. In this museum some of those are remembered with their photographs displayed in the corner of the museum.

Gori Great Patriotic War Museum – 02

There are, however, other items of interest for a visitor. These include;

a full length statue of Joseph Vassarionovich Djughashvili (Joseph Stalin) standing at the bottom on the single room which is the museum. Not the best of likenesses but one to add to those searching for his statues in Gori, complementing those in a near-by park and the railway station. (Both those a more accurate likeness, I think.);
a number of interesting banners from different regiments and battalions, some with images of VI Lenin and/or JV Stalin. Some are not in the best of condition but not surprising considering the ferocity of the battles;

Gori Great Patriotic War Museum – 03

a collection of Nazi insignia, in display cases on the floor – emulating the fate of the Nazi banners thrown at the feet of Stalin, and in front of the Lenin Mausoleum, in Red Square on the first Victory Day in 1945;
a small statue depicting homage to the Red Flag.

The War Memorial

Great Patriotic War Memorial – Gori

Gori’s War Memorial, to the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, is located in Hero’s Square – which is the small garden in front of the main entrance to the museum.

The memorial begins just to the right of the museum entrance. Here there’s a plaque, in Georgian, with an inscription which quotes part of the poem by the Georgian poet Galaktion Tabidze – ‘Let the Banners Wave on High’ (დროშები ჩქარა):

‘დიდება ხალხისთვის წამებულ რაინდებს,

ვინც თავი გასწირა, ვინც სისხლი დაღვარა.

მათ ხსოვნას სამშობლო სანთლებად აინთებს’

‘Glory to those with souls devoid of fear,
Who for the people’s cause did bravely die…
Their names shine bright like torches in the night…’

Then there is ceramic mural which takes the form of an ‘L’ shape, with a small part on the wall of the museum and then the longer side being on a wall that runs the length of the square. On here you see depicted both figures in the land army as well as those from the naval armed forces. As stated above no battles actually took place on Georgian soil but many Georgians did fight and die on the various fronts and those from Gori are memorialised inside the museum.

Georgian Socialist Realist art, especially when it comes to murals and bas reliefs, is very distinctive. The same can be said of the statuary of the period. In both those art forms the rounds are exaggerated as are the straight edges of the human form. This can be seen here in Gori but is also demonstrated on the Mother of Georgia – Kartlis Deda statue in Tbilisi; the wall panels next to the Bodorna Hydroelectric plant (along the ‘military road’ which goes up to the Russian border at Kazbegi); and the mural on the side of the telephone exchange in Tskaltubo.

The specific Georgia style gives the figures an almost comic aspect. This is enhanced by the fact that the murals, at least the majority I’ve seen, are made up of smaller sections (whether ceramic or stone) and the spaces between the blocks give the impression that the figures are string puppets where there are gaps between the joints.

The first group of three, on the museum wall, are sailors and the ’rounding’ of the figures makes them out to be burly, muscle bound bruisers and the exaggerated cheeks bones make them out to be the picture of health.

This style also appears to make the figures less serious in their demeanour. In the first group along the long wall, nearest the museum, we have a group of sailors marching in formation. Some of them are looking at the viewer and seem happy that they are going off to war.

In the centre of the long wall (now partially obscured by an Christian cross, part of the monument to the Russo-Georgian War of 2008) is a group of three soldiers, giving a clenched fist salute – the sign of victory.

The Soviet symbol of the the Hammer and Sickle appears underneath the dates 1941-1945 (the duration of the war) and stars surround the figures of the left side of the wall.

Everything changes on the right of the dates where we see a celebration of peace, a child being protected from its fall by open, outstretched hands with images of doves flying around behind.

A few metres in front of the central part of the long bas-relief is a small stone circle that, at one time, would have housed the Eternal Flame. When this ceased to be in use I don’t know but seems to represent a denial of the sacrifice of Georgians in the struggle against Nazism in the 1940s – because it was the Soviet Union for which they fought. This is also reflected in the manner in which the War Memorial in Vake Park, in Tbilisi, has been allowed to go to rack and ruin.

Related;

Stalin Museum – Gori

Gori – Rediscovered statues of Joseph Stalin

Museum of the Great Patriotic War – Moscow

Location;

19 Stalin Avenue (between the Stalin Museum and the Town Hall square)

GPS;

41.98387º N

44.11199º E

Opening times of the Museum;

Tuesday to Sunday (closed Mondays) from 10.00 to 17.00

Entrance;

3 GEL

More on the Republic of Georgia

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo, Georgia

Posted on 10/08/2024 by Michael

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 06

More on the Republic of Georgia

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo, Georgia

Tskaltubo’s a strange place. The village itself is, to say the least, nondescript and if it had any purpose at all in the past it was to serve the resort hotels and spa complexes which were built on top of the hot springs and the (foul-smelling) curative mud.

All the hotels and spas are either close to or inside a huge park that is (very roughly) 2 kilometres long and about 500 metres wide (at it’s greatest) with a north-south orientation. When this place was at its busiest there must have been thousands of people here and would have resembled the holiday resorts on the Costas in Spain. Walking around the, now mostly abandoned, hotels you come across corridors going off corridors with rooms on either side. Although all of them have large restaurants they would have been unable to cope with all the residents at the same time so there must have been a very strict and organised rota at meal times.

In a previous post, Tskaltubo’s abandoned Spas, Springs and Sanatoria, I attempted to give the background of this area and a feeling of the abandoned faculties which would have had many happy memories, I’m sure, for thousands of Soviet citizens.

Information is somewhat contradictory but what is almost certain is that the heyday of the area would have been from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s – and I imagine the crash would have been as sudden as the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. The whole infrastructure which would have moved so many people back and forth from the Soviet Union to Georgia would have fallen apart; the people had too much of an uncertain future to consider going on holiday; money quickly became scarce; and Georgian nationalists would not have been that welcoming when they saw the weakness of the once powerful Socialist entity.

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 01

But if citizens from the rest of the Soviet Union lost a favoured holiday destination the Georgians didn’t benefit. Many of them would have lost their jobs overnight. And this wouldn’t have been just those who worked directly in contact with the visitors in the hotels and the spa complexes. A whole host of ancillary jobs would have gone as well in the greater Kutaisi area.

For example, there used to be a railway station (close to which is now the Tourist Information Office) and at the bottom of the park, on the exit road leading to Kutaisi, there was a not insignificant hospital. The latter would have served not only the visitors (with so many statistically there would have been a number of accidents and emergencies) but those locals who worked in the resort, many of whom I imagine lived in the apartment blocks and houses to the east of the main road to Kutaisi.

Recently there’s been renovation of some of the spas (especially Spring No. 6, which houses Stalin’s ‘private bath house’) but many of the accommodation blocks have been (partly) taken over by refugees from Abkhazia, who are living in disgusting slums. Although I’m sure that few in the Georgian government care about these refugees they will probably be ‘safe’ in their squatter status as there’s no way that the area will ever return to it’s illustrious past and there will never be enough money to return all the resort hotels to their former glory.

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 02

However, there has been major investment to restore (at least in part) probably one of the biggest hotels, if not in the number of bedrooms at least with its surrounding grounds. This is now called the Legends Spa Resort and is located to the east of the park, half way from the entrance to the resort area on the way to the village of Tskaltubo.

At the height of its popularity this must have been one of the most impressive complexes in the area. The three accommodation buildings of the complex are set along its own private road, quite high above the public road that passes on the way to the village of Tskaltubo, and is reached via two portico entrances from which wide steps lead up to a viewpoint. The trees here are now very much established but forty or so years ago, from these vantage points, the visitors would have been able to look across to the park and a walk from the hotel to the park, or even the spas, would have been a common activity for the visitors.

Although in its prime there would have been on site spa/health facilities these have still yet to be completed (if ever) and those present day visitors on an accommodation and health package get bussed to one of the restored spas in the area of the park, a few minutes away.

Of the three buildings only one has had any substantial work carried out to bring it up to present day standards (and expectations) to open as a hotel – and that only partially – and is the only building currently in use. This is the northern most of the three which has an interesting Socialist Realist bas relief frieze above the front door. I’ve read various articles suggesting that the renovation of the rest of this building is some time in the distant future.

One of the other two buildings (the one with statues above the main entrance) appears to have had some work carried out in the relatively recent past, although it definitely looked like a budget option – but this looks as if it hasn’t been used for some time. The third looked as if it had not been touched at all since the last Soviet visitor left and although not in the best of condition – and difficult to see clearly due to the sprawling vegetation – it also has a Socialist Realist frieze on the façade.

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 05

Only very few people were staying there when I visited at the very beginning of June 2024 but I got the impression that large groups would arrive from time to time so perhaps my stay wasn’t indicative of the occupation levels – and anyway it was still relatively early in the summer season.

Having walked around derelict and completely uninhabitable (although some people are forced to live there as they have nowhere else) ex-hotel buildings in other parts of Tskaltubo it was interesting to see what these places were like when they were such a popular destination for Soviet workers. But, as stated above, not all of this particular hotel has been fully restored – so dereliction was only just (literally) around the corner. Go up one staircase and everything is what you would expect in such a hotel but go up another and you see what a lot of work is needed to bring the whole building up to scratch.

A picture paints a thousand words so it is hoped that the slide show will provide a better idea of the whole of the complex. Here I just want to point out a few aspects which stuck out in my mind as I explored all the (sometimes) dark and dusty corridors. For someone who wants to get an idea of the place the fact that there was no restriction on where you could go was quite refreshing, so-called ‘health and safety’ – often used as an excuse to prohibit access – gone mad certainly in the UK (if not other countries in Western Europe).

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 04

In no particular order;

the many rooms which had been renovated but not kept immediately ready for guests but would be sorted very rapidly if a big group was to book in;
the stacks of old spa baths, very dated in their design, which had been taken out of the hotel’s own spa area but the new baths had not yet (in the summer of 2024) been fully plumbed in and the work to do so seemingly frozen for whatever reason;
the covered walkway, with metal-framed windows on either side, now (and probably originally) lines with potted plants that joined the accommodation area with the dining and entertainment area of the complex;
the large circular dining room which wasn’t in use when I was there but looking as if it wouldn’t take too much to get it ready;
the circular cinema/theatre which downstairs looked as if it could be ready for a performance at any time but in the balcony the chairs were dirty and many of them broken or missing with the walls flaking;
the light fittings that were very reminiscent of the Moscow Metro. Whereas western metros and underground systems are industrial spaces that of the Soviet transport system was ‘domestic’, there being light fittings that you would find in other public buildings in the country, which included chandeliers, all which provides a softer lighting as opposed to the harsh, functional fluorescent strips which are the norm in the west;
the cinema projection room which still houses two, late 20th century 35mm projectors, one of which still had a reel of film in place. Although not very tidy and with a few things having been taken for use elsewhere you could still imagine (with a fair stretch of the imagination) that a film could be shown tonight;

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 03

the ‘museum’ – which is really only a higgledy-piggledy collection of items which no one could find a present day use for but didn’t want to throw them in the skip. This includes a bust of Karl Marx and one of VI Lenin, as well as some old health awareness posters and a 1980s ‘sound system’ amongst other nick-knacks. This all in what was a small café/bar in the latter days of the Soviet resort;

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 07

a frieze depicting industrial workers and those in working in the countryside, as well as ‘intellectuals’ necessary for the construction of Socialism – the workers of hand and brain. The frieze above the entrance of the first building – that which is in constant use – in a very good, and restored, condition. The one over building three – the building that doesn’t seemed to have received any renovation of any kind since the building was closed – needing a bit of loving care but still in a good enough condition that you can make out the story;
remnants of the 1980s in terms of furniture, curtains, pianos, light fittings, etc. All the renovation seems to have attempted to recreate the ambiance of the past where possible;
‘Stalin’s suite’ – which is located on the first floor of the third (the least ‘luxurious’) building. As stated above there doesn’t seem to have been any work carried out in this building and for that reason is the most derelict. That is, apart from a small area on the first floor on the west side of the building. This is a small suite comprising of; a sitting room; a bedroom; a small office and a bathroom. Obviously Uncle Joe wasn’t into cooking as there are no facilities for such. This is said to have been Stalin’s residence of choice. Now whether this is true or not I cannot say. I’ve also read about a villa on the other side of the park that Stalin was supposed to have used when visiting Tskaltubo. But if we assume that it is true then what this demonstrates is how humble and undemanding a personage Comrade Stalin was. NO capitalist leader at the same time that he was the leader of the Soviet Union would have stayed in such humble circumstances – even less so now. And as with his ‘private bath house’ in Spring No. 6 it just goes to show what an unassuming man he was – a true leader of the working class.

Spa Resort, Tskaltubo – 08

Another thought I had when walking around this complex just reinforced what I was thinking when I first visited Tskaltubo. Yes, many of the buildings, both the hotels and hot springs/spas are ruins but that was due to neglect and not mindless vandalism. In various parts of this complex you get the impression that one day everyone just up and left – some being careless and not shutting the doors or windows. Come the winter or the rainy season the elements stared to make an impact and some of the wooden parquet floors were damaged. As there was no regular maintenance being carried out that meant that, over time, water started to get in through breaks in gutters or leaks in roofs thereby causing damage to ceilings and walls and wooden window frames started to rot. Lack of regular maintenance also meant that the exterior stonework started to stain and crumble.

Although there must have been some element of looting it wasn’t complete and although it might have caused long lasting damage in some circumstances it certainly wasn’t general. This was very different from what happened when things fell apart in Albania. In that country there was wholesale destruction and whereas, at least, some of the buildings in Tskaltubo could be brought back into use you can say that about remarkably few in Albania.

Whether by commission or omission I still feel that the people’s of the once Socialist Republics ended up throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Location;

Rustaveli St 23, Tskaltubo

GPS;

42.321194º N

42.604205º E

Website;

Legends Tskaltubo Spa Resort

More on the Republic of Georgia

‘Burnt School’ – Mackintosh Building, Glasgow School of Art – Part 2

Posted on 03/08/2024 by Michael

Mackintosh Building – 2024

‘Burnt School’ – Mackintosh Building, Glasgow School of Art – Part 2

I first wrote about the ‘Burnt School’, aka the Mackintosh Building, Glasgow School of Art, in July 2019, just a little over a year following the second (even more devastating) fire which succeeded in destroying what the first fire (in May 2014) failed to achieve. At that time I expressed my doubts on the plan to ‘rebuild as new’ which had been proposed but was quite impressed by the immense scaffolding structure that had been created to prevent what hadn’t been destroyed from falling down.

It was just under five years later I next had the opportunity to witness, first hand, the ‘progress’ that had been made in the intervening period. And I must admit I was disappointed.

From the outside the only obvious difference was the installation of white plastic sheeting covering the whole of the scaffolding (something I had suggested in my post in 2019 but at that time with the idea that it should be turned into an artistic project – after all we are talking about an Art School) which now hides the complexity of the structure underneath.

From what I was able to glean, from checking the internet in March of this year, all that had been achieved in the five years between my visits was the stabilisation of the building. That meant no ‘restoration’ work as such had been started but the structure was then considered to be safe for workers to begin the recreation of the ‘iconic’ (how I hate that word) Glasgow landmark.

However, between my visit earlier this year and the time of writing this post another ‘hiccup’ has placed the whole future of the project in some serious doubt. The insurers don’t want to cough up.

The fact the building has not been fully functional for more than ten years would make a rational person come to the conclusion that the original rebuild plan might have to be scrapped. But not the Glaswegian artistic ‘elite’. In place of accepting that the plan is now becoming too ambitious, too expensive and there being serious doubts whether it will even be possible to achieve the chair of the school’s board, Muriel Gray, has stated that the rebuilding of the Mackintosh is ‘non-negotiable’. It seems that it’s become the norm in our society that when faced with insurmountable odds the reaction of the ‘elite’ is to ‘double-down’ – as we see with the US/UK/NATO/EU coalition when it comes to the conflict in the Ukraine.

It is increasingly looking as if all the money that has already been spent (I’ve seen the figure of £18 million) has just been wasted. If common sense had been in place from the day after the second blaze then instead of looking back to the past the Glasgow School of Art could have looked to the future. Perhaps they could have found an architect, or group of architects (as it seems that even for the original building Charles Rennie Mackintosh didn’t work entirely alone – as is generally thought – but worked in collaboration with two other architects from the same architectural practice, John Honeyman and John Keppie) who could come up with an equally startling and interesting building to fill the gap in the Glaswegian skyline for the next hundred or so years. It would be hoped that in such a circumstance one of the specifications would be a significant element of fire-proofing.

That would be my suggestion – but then who am I to question the wisdom of the school governors who managed to allow a building they love so much to burn down not once but twice.

But I’m not entirely alone when it comes to questioning the current, reactionary thinking. An article I only came across recently, although it had been published in July 2018, also suggested that the building should be left to rest in peace.

With the recent delays and the fact the insurers don’t want to pay (surprise, surprise!) perhaps those who have the final say in Glasgow should be seriously re-thinking the plan they came up with, on the spur of the moment and without rational thought, way back in the summer of 2018.

As it is the ruined art school building (despite its plastic sheeting) and the derelict buildings on Sauciehall Street – the old ballroom and shops which were burnt out at the same time and which remain in place as, presumably, they are in some way still holding up the shell – are just a blot on the landscape.

Update 8th August 2024

A few days after writing the above I came across an article which reported that there is now planning permission to demolish the building (serving as a night club at the time) which was also seriously damaged when the Art School caught alight in 2018. Yet more student accommodation will be built in its place.