Vake Park, Tomb of the Unknown Warrior and the Mother of the Place – Tbilisi

Posted on 23/08/2024 by Michael

Vake Park – 01

Vake Park, Tomb of the Unknown Warrior and the Mother of the Place, Tbilisi

The War Memorial in Vake Park, on the edge of Tbilisi centre, has gone through a process of evolution (and then regressed) over the years. However, it’s not easy to find definitive information of when and who.

The park, which might have existed before the Great Patriotic War, became Victory Park in 1946 and a war memorial installed. This would seem to have been a relatively simple affair, possible just a simple ground level marble slab covering the ‘Unknown Warrior’ in front of which was an eternal flame.

Although I’m not certain of the exact chronology it seems matters remained simple until the beginning of the 1980s. Between 1981 and 1985 there was a major construction project that; involved the building of the cascade and fountains in the hill behind the flame; the installation of the 18-meter bronze statue of the Mother of the Place at the very top of the monument; the installation of the eight (of what have now been called the) Georgian Warrior Heroes, guarding the tomb; then the installation of the statue above the tomb and the resitting of the eternal flame, this time with the flame emerging from a red marble star rather than just being an open flame.

All this happened in stages as is illustrated in a photograph from the period.

Tomb of Unknown Warrior and Eternal Flame before 1981

The sculptor of the Mother of the Place and the eight Warriors were created as a package and are the work of Gogi Ochiauri. To me the ‘warriors’ seemed out of place in this park and, although many years later, someone else agreed as in 2009 they were moved and now are installed in a small garden just below the fortress in the town of Gori (the town of Stalin’s birth and the location of the Stalin Museum).

Vake Park – 03

As far as I understand the architects of the reconstruction were; V. Aleksi-Meskhishvili, O. Litanishvili, K. Nakhutsrishvili.

Zurab Tsereteli is also listed as being involved. He was a sculptor and artist who specialised in mosaics – he was responsible for, among others, the Russian-Georgian Friendship Monument at Gudauri, off the ‘military road’ from Tbilisi to the Russian border – so it’s likely he was responsible for the decoration of the fountains and cascade, the line of Georgian red and white flags at the rear of the lower pond and the numbers 1941 and 1945 – the years between which it took to defeat the Nazi hoard.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Georgian: უცნობი ჯარისკაცის საფლავი) commemorates the hundreds of thousands of Georgian soldiers who served and died in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. It’s possible the creator of this monumental sculpture was Nikola Nikolov. The monument was opened officially by Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR Eduard Shevardnadze, as part of the diamond jubilee of the republic in 1981.

Vake Park – 02

The monument used to be guarded by a ceremonial guard from the National Guard of Georgia, changing every hour in a formal ceremony, as is/was the case in many such locations throughout the Soviet Union. However, this has ceased since elements in Georgia started to court the ‘West’.

Whether the ‘eternal’ flame is ever lit now I can’t say. It’s possible it might be in operation when Georgian veterans of war and residents of the capital gather at the tomb to commemorate holidays such as Victory Day (9th May). As for the fountains those lower down might be functioning but I have my doubts of those above the level of the tomb.

This area has been neglected for years. The area around the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is still kept tidy(ish) but the waterfalls that were created by water cascading from just below the statue of the Mother of the Place high up the hill are now little more than ruins. The steps on either side of the cascades are now no longer easy to negotiate by soil brought down by the rains as there is no longer any regular maintenance.

Location;

76 Ilia Chavchavadze Avenue

GPS;

41°42′30″N

44°45′5″E

More on the Republic of Georgia

The Great Patriotic War Museum and War Memorial – Gori

Posted on 15/08/2024 by Michael

Gori Great Patriotic War Museum – 01

More on the Republic of Georgia

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

Moscow Kievskya railway station

Posted on 02/08/2024 by Michael

Kievskaya Railway Station – Sachkv

Moscow Kievskya railway station

Kiyevskya railway terminal (Russian: Ки́евский вокза́л, Kievskiy vokzal) is one of the nine railway terminals of Moscow, Russia. It is the only railway station in Moscow to have a frontage on the Moskva River. The station is located at the Square of Europe, in the beginning of Bolshaya Dorogomilovskaya Street in Dorogomilovo District of Moscow. A hub of the Moscow Metro is located nearby.

Kievskaya railway station – 03

As the name suggests, there were regular services to Kiev and many other points in Ukraine. There used to be regular services to Belgrade, Zagreb, Varna, Bucharest, Sofia, Chișinău, Niš, Budapest, Prague, Vienna and Venice as well. 15-20 years ago, all these trains were cancelled, some were transferred to the Belorussky railway station.

The station was built between 1914 and 1918 in the Byzantine Revival style, which is especially pronounced in the 51m-high (167 ft) clock tower. Originally named the Bryansk station, it was designed by Ivan Rerberg and Vladimir Shukhov, and is considered an important landmark of architecture and engineering of the time.

Text above from Wikipedia.

The decoration of the building, both inside and outside, seems to be very much as it was designed at the beginning of the 20^th century. Soviet imagery just appears to have been superimposed on what could be considered tsarist baroque. This is apart from the main waiting room that had four large bas-reliefs added after the Great Patriotic War. In fact, this particular area contains the greatest amount of Soviet emblems, i.e., the hammer and sickle image, stars and also references to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.

Kievskaya railway station – 04

At the time of my visit in May 2024 there was also a temporary exhibition of Soviet posters (reproductions) from the time of the Great Patriotic War to coincide with the celebration of Victory Day on the 9^th.

Kievskaya railway station – 05

The exterior façade of the building includes two images of Saint George – one of him killing the dragon and the other on his stay in heaven. These appear to be coloured mosaics but I have no idea whether these were covered in the past or just allowed to be there as they were part of the original decoration. Also of interest from the original design are the four art deco statues which flank the image of George, allegories for early 20^th industry and transport.

Kievskaya railway station – 01

Also, on the left hand side of what is now the main entrance to the building is a large grey marble plaque to VI Lenin.

Kievskaya railway station – 02

So far the building has avoided the same sort of ‘modernisation’ that has been inflicted upon other railway stations. Whether that is a sign of its now limited use or the fact that the modernisation is about to come is unknown.